Father of Strength
by Lin7 M12i
Summary: At the end of Soul Society, Kenpachi is nearly alone in the world. Can he make a choice to save everything he ever loved, or will he descend into the madness that has been beckoning for so many years?
1. The Grinning End

(A/N: I don't own Bleach)

**The Grinning End**

****oOoOo

His name was Kenpachi. It was his by right of combat. Combat was his law. Everything was won or lost by combat. It was the first thing he learned in Zaraki. It was the most important thing he learned in his whole life.

Your life was only worth as much value as you placed upon it. If someone left you alive, then you should take the gift and get stronger. Kenpachi would give that gift to his children.

Yachiru. Ikkaku. Yumichika. The Eleventh Division.

When he went to Seireitei, they called him a demon. He was just a demon from Zaraki - a product of _their_ society. They had heard of him before, the Kenpachi. He was unbeatable they said. He hunted all of the strongest fighters in the dregs of Soul Society. He carried a little pink-haired girl on his shoulder and brushed away challengers like bothersome flies.

They said he was a bloodthirsty demon, who didn't care about his troops and slaughtered people indiscriminately.

He proved them right; he killed a captain with ease - like a demon, barely phased by the man's attacks. They were fools. They never noticed that he proved them wrong, creating the strongest fighting force in all of Soul Society. No one ever thought about the fact that he never killed anyone except those stupid enough to challenge him, and the Hollows that he was responsible for the destruction of. His men (and the few women that could survive in his division) were loyal, tough, willing, and ready to fight.

They would also be ready to die.

For years, the other divisions logged complaints about the Eleventh Division. The rowdiness of the soldiers, the ignorance of the officers, and the indifference of the captain; everything was a complaint in the box. When the time came to fight, the Eleventh Division was first to fight, last to retreat.

Captain Unohana would lament Captain Zaraki for encouraging his troops to fight so enthusiastically; but even she could not deny that despite the high numbers of wounded, the Eleventh Division displayed a startlingly low casualty rate, and a ridiculously fast recovery rate. They would be at every battle, without fail, no matter what their injuries. She once asked Zaraki to hold his troops back –

"Zaraki-taicho, stop your injured troops from fighting and aggravating their injuries!"

"It's not my choice to make. They are fighting for themselves, and it's their lives on the line. I wouldn't want them to stop me, so I will extend them the same courtesy. Why do you care anyways? They are fighting to protect _your_ precious Soul Society. If they don't go to fight, then someone else will have to go, and I doubt that you want your precious troops to have to fight."

She slapped him. He just glared her down.

"It doesn't matter what you say, _Taicho_. I know that my division and me are the most expendable in all _your_ precious Soul Society."

He spat on the floor. She stood her ground, long years in her position giving her nerves of steel.

"Make no mistake, we know what we are and how much you care for us. We may seem stupid, but we aren't deaf. I fight for Soul Society of my own free will, and so do they. Regardless of what you say about us, we will fight. No matter how many stones you throw, we will fight. For every dirty look, every cruel comment, we will still fight."

He turned from her, moving to the door of her room. He paused at the door.

"Fighting is all I have ever known. I once believed that I would die alone in a ditch in Zaraki. All I could do is fight and kill. I have learned nearly everything I know on the battlefield. I killed hundreds just to stay alive. I didn't learn to write until the day that I showed up here and became Captain. I didn't have anyone give a rat's ass about me until I met Yachiru. I didn't have a name until I gave one to myself. I didn't know the difference between happiness and staying alive."

He looked at the floor.

"I don't want that life for any of my people."

He opened the door, reiatsu flaring into the hallway.

"If they are capable of fighting, it is up to them. Whatever you decide to do about it is up to you."

-She rarely brought anything up with him again.

Captain Kurotsuchi would giggle about the Eleventh Division Captain. The Eleventh Division had a rising interest in the various things his division specialized in. Only Kurotsuchi's own division, some of Soi Fong's division, and the Fourth Division were at all interested in his inventions, the others brushing the devices, creatures, grafts, and miscellaneous other things off as novelty items. Zaraki brought a new wave to his ideas, creating a tough division with the health and sturdiness to withstand some of his more volatile creations, which he would otherwise have to simply put down himself.

Most of the other captains avoided contact with the Eleventh Division Captain. Tousen and Komamura agreed that the Captain was rather unstable, and only gained his position through a fluke. Aizen just avoided the man on principle. Gin never had any reason to seek him out. Hitsugaya's meeting with Zaraki had led to meeting Yachiru, who reminded him of everything about his childhood he had left behind. Ukitake was too sickly to be of any interest. Soi Fong regarded the man – and his division – as unstable cannon fodder. Kyoraku probably got along the best with Zaraki, because he could at least join the Eleventh Division in drinking if nothing else. Byakuya saw them as vulgar commoners, who did not even make an effort to learn the manners necessary to function in society.

Yamamoto was the question. Most of the other captains were surprised that the "Demon of Zaraki" was even allowed to _become_ a captain. His method of gaining captainship was archaic and hardly used in centuries. Yamamoto raised no objections, and had even shaken Zaraki's hand after the fight. They acknowledged each other, because they had both lived through times or places where the rules of the combat were the most important. There was a sort of primal understanding between them, and Yamamoto rarely interfered in the running of the Eleventh Division, only giving Zaraki quick pieces of advice for running a solid division.

But when battles came, the Eleventh Division always got the first call to arms. It is said that Zaraki is just battle-crazed, but the truth is that his division is pretty much always prepared. Their weapons are always nearby, because they fight and train all the time. To be completely honest, most of the practice that the Fourth Division gets is because the Eleventh Division is constantly in and out with injuries.

When Aizen finally came, only the Eleventh Division was prepared to immediately respond. They held back the Hollows in the vital beginnings of the battle. Badly outnumbered, the Eleventh Division nonetheless held paths between the guard posts. The other divisions soon joined the fight, and the Hollow were pushed back.

They pushed them back out of Seireitei.

Rukongai was left to waste and burn.

The battle had left the Eleventh Division with the highest numbers of Shinigami casualties in the history of Shinigami battles. Captain Unohana saved as many as she could, but the Eleventh Division had been halved. If it had not been in times of war, Zaraki probably would have been removed as an inept captain. As it was, the Eleventh Division burned their dead and returned to their headquarters.

Kenpachi and Yachiru went to the Captain/Vice Captain meetings.

~OOOOOOO~

When Kenpachi walked in, taking his place among the other captains, he was surprised to see the uncovered head of Komamura, "Zaraki-taicho, you have my condolences."

He grunted, "Thanks Komamura."

Byakuya sniffed, "Still as rude as ever."

Kenpachi just tilted his head at the sixth division captain, "And you're still the last to show up to a fight, dumbass."

Byakuya twitched, "You cannot blame me for –"

"People, let us call this meeting to order," Yamamoto interrupted the budding argument.

Kenpachi leaned his head back down, moving his eyes to study the patterns on the floor. Byakuya remained poised, but his hand relaxed away from his zanpakuto.

"The first order of business is the invasion and the response to it."

Kenpachi raised his head.

"Zaraki-taicho, being the head of the division most involved in the defense, report."

A few of the other captains shifted nervously, catching the irritated tone in their Commander's voice.

"Not much to say. They came, we all fought, they got pushed behind the wall, and you shut it," Kenpachi's toneless report left the nervous captains either more twitchy or more like stone and ice.

"Zaraki!" Yamamoto snapped.

Kenpachi raised his head to Yamamoto.

"We all understand your loss, but your division was the _only_ division to respond on such a wide scale. Report!"

"What did I miss in my report? The fact that it took most of the other divisions fifteen minutes just to fight their way out of their division fields?" Kenpachi snorted, "Or maybe the fact that we were outnumbered five to one out there? Hmm?"

Ukitake coughed quietly. Yamamoto glared at him.

"Why was your division so quick to respond?" Kyoraku asked.

"Cause I figured that no one is stupid enough just to come up to the gates and knock after that shit Ichigo pulled."

"Elaborate."

Kenpachi wasn't even sure who threw that question out, "Look, a few weeks ago it occurred to me that Aizen knows where we are, so we're just sitting ducks here. So I took out a map and went out with Yachiru to figure out where there's nobody stationed, and then I told my division to go hang out in those holes in their free time. It seemed like a good idea at the time, and we all fell into the habit of hanging out waiting."

"How are we to know that you aren't in league with Aizen?" Byakuya questioned.

"You Bastard!" Kenpachi roared, his reiatsu flaring even as Komamura and Kyoraku restrained him.

"Kuchiki-taicho! That was uncalled for!"

"If half of _your_ division dies tomorrow, I'll ask _you_ if you're working with Aizen!" Kenpachi yelled out.

Byakuya half-drew his sword, before he found Soi Fong and Hitsugaya holding their swords to his throat. Yamamoto banged his cane on the floor; the can started to burn slightly, revealing the edge of his Zanpakuto.

"Shut up you fools! This is not the time for us all to kill each other. If you want to die so eagerly then at least throw yourselves to the Arrancar!"

Yamamoto's wide-open eyes burned with reiatsu, and the room blurred with the show of power from the commander and the captains.

"Zaraki-taicho saved more lives today than the Fourth Division, simply because he was _thinking ahead_. I know for a fact that his division has been watching those holes for at least the last two months. None of you questioned him, except to register complaints about the presence of his squads in these holes in our defense. I know because _my_ squads have been reinforcing the regular guard towers and keeping an eye on everything. I already have a complete report of the battle."

The captains relaxed, returning swords to sheaths, releasing Kenpachi and Byakuya. Byakuya looked at the ground in shame, knowing that for his entire noble upbringing, he had failed. Kenpachi's shoulders were sagging. Soi Fong and Hitsugaya looked away from the Commander, ashamed of their mistakes. Ukitake and Kyoraku watched each other silently, knowing that they had ignored any strategic issues. Unohana watched Kenpachi out of the corner of her eye, knowing that she had done all she could, but still hurting over the battle in which so many lives were lost nonetheless. Komamura stood as straight as he could, tears glistening in his oddly colored eyes. Kurotsuchi watched everyone, analyzing the situation and trying to figure out how badly he had performed.

Yamamoto sighed, "For years, you have spoken trash about Zaraki-taicho, but today you proved that you are more trash than he is. We are at war. He was ready for war. You were all ready for whatever you've been doing for the rest of your lives. Some of you have been training harder, some of you have been working harder, but only _one_ of the captains of the Gotei 13 was really ready for this war."

Kenpachi was slumped. Knowing that he was right didn't make it any easier.

"The Eleventh Division has paid the price for your salvation in blood. Do not forget it!" Yamamoto finished.

~OOOOOOO~

The Vice Captain meeting was much more subdued. Yachiru Kusajishi's silent visage, standing at attention and politely thanking everyone for their condolences had unnerved everyone.

"Was it bad?" Nemu Kurotsuchi had been with the Twelfth Division during the whole ordeal, and had been relatively protected.

"Hai."

"Neh, Kusajishi-fukutaicho. Why was the Eleventh everywhere?" Rangiku Matsumoto asked quietly.

"Cause that's what Ken-chan told us to do," Yachiru stated, looking up at Matsumoto.

Tetsuzaemon Iba shifted uncomfortably, adjusting his sunglasses. "Kusajishi-fukutaicho," her eyes shifted to meet his black sunglasses, "Why didn't you ask the other divisions for help?"

"Ken-chan… said that none of the other captains would listen, and he didn't want to bother the old man."

"Bullshit!" Shuuhei Hisagi growled, "If we knew the attack was coming we would have been there, all he had to do was send a damn message!"

Nanao Ise nodded her head, "Kusajishi-fukutaicho, it would have been a simple thing to send a message to the other divisions about the attack today."

"We didn't know _when_ the attack was coming!" Yachiru looked at the ground, "All that we knew is that it would be soon."

"Let her be," Chojiro Sasakibe muttered, just loud enough for everyone to hear, "The Eleventh Division has been guarding those points for the last two months."

"Hai!" Yachiru looked at the First Division Vice-Captain speculatively, "But how do you know that? I don't think Ken-chan talked to the old man about it."

"We man the guard towers that were set up."

"Why didn't you ever come down and play with us?" Yachiru bounced over to the man.

"It would have been leaving our posts!"

"Come on, you should play with us later. Renji played with us before he left! Sunglasses plays with us sometimes," Iba twitched, "And all the women come to the association meetings! The big guy is always eating, so he doesn't ever come, and the other two are always busy cause they've got so much work to do."

Matsumoto giggled, "Yachiru-chan, I think we might be kinda busy now."

Isane Kotetsu, who had spent most of the meeting nervously playing with her hands, spoke up, "The Fourth Division is so busy, how can I think about having play time?"

"I'll come and help you out then! I can visit Maki-Maki…" Yachiru trailed off, remembering that the man was dead.

"Kusajishi-fukutaicho, I believe the preliminary casualty report listed over one hundred casualties from your division…" Izuru Kira admonished quietly, "Will your division even still be considered for active duty?"

"Hai! None of the other captains will want any of us."

Matsumoto laughed, and a few of the other vice-captains smiled. Isane cringed, remembering the bloody battlefield and the numerous dead out there.

"Your battlefield effectiveness is at nearly fifty percent just from casualties, how will you keep fighting?" Kiyone Kotetsu was shocked at how uncaring Yachiru seemed, "Do you not care about your division? Will they all have to die before you see reason?"

"Kiyone!" Isane shushed her quietly.

"Most everyone who lost out there was weak anyway, and everyone else is ready for the next fight already!"

Nemu had a curious expression on her face, "I would think that with a fifty percent casualty rate, you would have a lot of injured at the Fourth Division at the moment. How is it that you are already recovered?"

"We can all walk and lift a sword!"

Matsumoto retreated to the corner giggling, and watching the escalating fight between the grinning Vice-Captain of the Eleventh Division and several of the other vice-captains.

"Damn it little girl! This is no time for jokes!" Hisagi yelled out, "Shinigami _died_ today, and all you can do is mess around!"

"People die every day!" Yachiru's grin faded into a tight smile as she defended her words.

"I've been saying for years that they're all completely nuts, but do you believe me…." Marechiyo Omaeda snorted quietly, "No, you let them keep commanding a division and get so many Shinigami killed."

One pink blur and an explosion of a bag of chips had the room tensing up. Yachiru was holding the tip of her sword to Omaeda's throat as the large man cowered back towards the wall. Matsumoto couldn't stop giggling, watching the byplay curiously. A tiny little girl was holding this giant man at swordpoint, as he quivered, nearly pissing himself in fear.

"Every person in the Eleventh Division is my friend. Today, I just watched half of them get killed because you were too busy feeding your fucking face to fight."

No one here had ever seen Yachiru angry. Iba had seen her crying on Kenpachi's shoulder once. Matsumoto had watched the little vice-captain calmly filling out reports in crayon. Isane had dealt with the "girl" when she was berserk on a sugar high and sent many people to the hospital. Nemu had occasionally sat and watched the sunrise or sunset with her, both of them pensive over the day. The others had little to no contact with the girl. If Renji had been at the meeting, he may have remembered a time watching Yachiru slaughter Hollows. None of them had seen her in the battle today.

At some point, they had all forgotten that this odd little girl was from the Kusajishi district. That she had come to the Gotei 13 on the back of a demon, begging for candy all the way. They forgot that she had wearing a sword already. They forgot all the times that people came into the hospital, beaten by the tiny vice-captain.

No one really thought that she had earned her place as the vice-captain of a division. A vice-captain was support for their captain. Doing paperwork, dealing with the quirks of their captains, taking command of the division, fighting Hollows with the division; a vice-captain was usually the bridge between their divisions and their often unstable or unreliable captains. Several of the others had been appointed to their positions for one reason or another. In the Eleventh Division, it was won by combat. No one could interfere, and no one could fix the results.

The vice-captains were frozen in the face of this enraged pink creature. This didn't seem like the same Yachiru they saw every day. That little girl begging for candy was not this furious demon that quaked with suppressed reiatsu. Even Matsumoto straightened, bringing her hand to her zanpakuto quietly.

Omaeda pissed himself, a warm line of liquid finding its way down the front of his pants.

Isane looked around, hoping that someone would bring a stop to this. Finally she moved, "Yachiru, calm down," Isane approached her from behind,

Yachiru tilted her head to the side slightly, "Kotetsu-fukutaicho… If he said that _you_ got half your division killed, would you let him live?"

Wincing at the formal tone, Isane lowered her head, "Hai. I don't think I could kill anyone like that."

Lowering her sword, Yachiru shook. "If you _ever_ say something like that about me **or** Ken-chan again, I will rip your fucking balls off Fatass."

Having his death averted, even if it was by such cold words, had Omaeda nodding his head frantically and collapsing to his knees.

Her eyes glassing over, Yachiru explained what happened to her that day, "It was like there was a sudden gust of wind, except it was made of Hollows. They just poured out, all around where the wall should have been. Ken-chan was sitting on a roof, and we just dove into the waves of Hollows. Everywhere we turned, it seemed like the Hollows never stopped coming. Ken-chan and me kept killing them, holding them back from the streets on the inside. A few of the shinigami fell, but they were all lower members. It was okay until the Hollows started throwing blasts of energy at us. It was like they would open a path in their ranks and a blast of energy would follow, wreaking havoc around us. Ken-chan stopped a few with his sword, but we saw the guard tower nearby go down. Surging into us was more Hollows. Ripping through them with our zanpakutos, we kept fighting."

Yachiru was shaking, remembering the battle vividly. Isane brought up her courage and wrapped her arms around Yachiru's back, hugging the girl to her chest.

"Ken-chan threw me out of there, telling me to go and help the other groups. I saw him turn into a whirlwind as he killed them. Baldy was doing fine, he had his bankai out and everything. Peacock was dancing around; the Hollows were falling around him like flies. I saw a few of the divisions breaking out through the hollows clogging their gates. Giant Fox was roaring and yelling, while his division looked to be doing pretty well. The old man was alone, surrounded by fire. I remember joining the fight with Squads 4, 6, 10, and 13. They were getting pushed back, so I charged in and took out as many as I could."

Standing there, in the arms of the Fourth Division Vice-Captain, Yachiru collapsed to her knees. Isane followed her down, tears coursing down her face.

"After a little while, I saw one of the Hollows started speaking to one of the others, and suddenly I was in this weird open space. I charged the talking Hollow, and then there was a burst of light from everywhere. I don't know what happened there, but Maki-Maki was in a pile on the ground, bleeding all over. It was like the world slowed down as I roared something out and swung my zanpakuto at the smart one. It wasn't a sword anymore, and he broke. The next hollow over broke too."

She had a grin on her face. The same grin they had seen on Kenpachi's face so many times was spotted on the face of his tiny vice-captain as well.

"I don't remember anything else clearly until Sixth and Fifth Divisions showed up. We fought them back behind the wall, the wall came down, and then the Fourth Division showed up and took us to the hospital."

The Vice-Captains meeting was reduced to an uncomfortable group of people, all trying to get away from each other. Isane and Yachiru kneeled in the middle, wrapped up in their memories of the day and each other, shivering.

~OOOOOOO~

"Now that we have the battle cleared up, and your incompetence proven, let's move to the second order of business. Calling back all active Shinigami, all temporary Shinigami, all missing Shinigami we can locate, and talking to Kisuke and Yoruichi. We need a bigger fighting force _now_."

Byakuya shifted nervously, knowing that his report would be unwelcome. Ukitake made the decision for him.

"Sensei, we have a problem. Kuchiki Rukia has disappeared again, along with Abarai-fukutaicho."

"Kuchiki-taicho! Explain yourself!" Yamamoto barked the order.

Managing to conduct himself with the air of his noble station, Byakuya responded, "Yamamoto-sotaicho, I knew that with or without my consent Rukia would return to help Ichigo. I sent my vice-captain with her to ensure a successful mission, or at least a successful retreat. It has been several days, so I am still unworried."

The Commander-General's reiatsu blazed. "You let a captain-class Shinigami, and a vice-captain-class Shinigami leave Soul Society… to assist _another_ captain-class temporary Shinigami, along with several companions that are powerful in their own right; and then go on a suicide mission into the depths of Hueco Mundo to retrieve a girl brought there by the Espada?"

"Kuchiki-taicho, you said it has been several days since they left, correct?" Byakuya nodded his head, while Hitsugaya continued, "So how does it make sense that after several days Aizen feels comfortable enough to send an army of Hollows to attack us?"

Byakuya stood silent.

"Never mind, it will be dealt with after this is over," Yamamoto interjected, "In the mean time we need every Shinigami we can get and all the help we can get. Kurotsuchi, when Kisuke returns you will combine your efforts to see what useful devices you can create. Soi Fong, I trust you can work with Yoruichi, but I also need you to try and get a message to Kukaku, perhaps Rukongai is not completely lost. Komamura and Kyoraku, I am giving you both advisory command of Third and Ninth Divisions, work together with their vice-captains. I will be taking advisory command of Fifth Division myself. Ukitake, you know the libraries the best, try and find any good references to useful paths or defense setups – though I doubt you'll find much. Kuchiki…work with the nobility to see if they can help us out."

Yamamoto paused, watching as they digested his orders before continuing.

"Zaraki, here's the map, you and Hitsugaya need to go over how to defend the same area with a lower casualty rate. Unohana, I need to know how bad the casualty report really is. Everyone, this is not fighting Hollows every day, this is defending Soul Society against an invasion the likes of which you have never seen."

~OOOOOOO~

As Rukongai burned, the Shinigami started to form into an army. The day had opened everyone's eyes to all sorts of things about what the war would bring. When Zaraki approached the Twelfth Division about a death-bomb, which would explode like a bomb when your heart stopped, no one questioned him. When Kurotsuchi started releasing undead creations on the Hollows, many turned their heads away, content in the knowledge that many Hollows died that day.

One of the few raids into Rukongai answered the question of Kukaku Shiba. They found her, but the only Shiba left alive was Ganju. The story they pieced together from his insane babblings was that she had released some sort of bankai, except it was a cluster bomb. As it was, Hanataro would barely manage to nurse the insane Shiba back to health before the Fourth Division Building fell and they retreated into the sewers. The sewers… Which turned out to be a boon from heaven. Protecting them from the larger Hollows and providing an easy escape method, along with quick transportation between points.

The spectacular fall of Soul Society started over the days following the first assault. The walls held as the Hollows ravaged Rukongai, while the Seireitei frantically prepared defenses. Focusing their defenses around the gates, there was an odd sense of surreal peace as they waited while the roars and screams merged together into one sound – the death knell for Soul Society. Every soul who would die out in Rukongai seemed to amplify the noise. The less experienced shinigami were constantly shaking, as the voices and cries penetrated their minds and refused to let go.

When the Hollow army began working on the gates, the peace was gone, and nervousness took its place. Yamamoto focused his divisions around the gates with backup from the Demon Arts Corps. The Fourth Division took up its places at the edge of the sewers, preparing for quickest transport to the hospital. The rest of the divisions guarded the other important places, and the sections of wall between gates had sparse Shinigami placements, mostly put in place by Hitsugaya and Zaraki as a safety net for the overflow from the gates.

The biggest joke was when the Espada simply ripped a hole in reality and stepped in behind them all.

Annihilating a portion of the defending forces, the Espada then watched as the gates were blown in by concentrated Cero. Caught between the two forces, the First and Fifth Divisions were almost completely annihilated through the battle. The Fourth Division took minor casualties, but only managed to save a quarter of both divisions.

The record for the number of shinigami lost in a single battle had been topped for the second time in three days.

As the other divisions watched, the Arrancar army of Sosuke Aizen decimated the defensive forces. The quick thinking of Hitsugaya, who sounded an organized retreat into the tunnels and sealed the gates, saved the day for much of the Fourth Division. The Espada went almost undefeated that day, as they wrought pain and death throughout the fields of Seireitei. The First Division Vice-Captain died somewhere on that battlefield, his own zanpakuto pierced through his skull in a sickening piece of art.

The front gates had fallen, and the Espada were running wild in the walls of Seireitei.

For those left alive in Seireitei, the true heroes were the Demon Arts Corps. Binding their reiatsu together into a powerful death spell, they managed to seal the interior of Seireitei in a strange field. Preventing a smorgasbord of the Hollow powers from being used, the field would save many lives in the coming weeks. As a bonus, it also managed to kill many of the lesser hollows.

The shinigami named that day "The Last Stand of One-Five", the hollows named it "Night of the Cursed City." Casualties on both sides had escalated to difficult numbers to deal with. Even Aizen's never-ending hordes of hollows took a breather after the battle, their victory dampened by the restrictions on their powers. The Espada left in confusion, returning to the comforting zone of Rukongai, though they still found it impossible to shoot Cero through the barrier.

Yamamoto was never quite the same after that night. Perhaps his survival confused him. He had been there for the first days of the shinigami academy, and he had now outlived it.

Several fortresses popped up in the silence that followed that night.

The Fourth Division hospital barricaded itself in. Protected by the Tenth and Eleventh Divisions, the hospital prepared itself to be defended fiercely, with the only escape routes entering the sewers.

Abandoning the remanents of the gates they had so desperately defended, Division One-Five took to the sewers and created a series of burrows underground, the walls burned in by the zanpakuto of Yamamoto himself.

The halls of the Research and Development labs suddenly teemed with life, as the Twelfth Division became the impromptu fortress of the Second, Third, Eighth, and Thirteenth Divisions. Expanding into unused labs became living arrangements, and the memorization of the labyrinthine paths was a requirement for all occupants. The researchers continued their odd experiments, pumping all sorts of interesting destruction out to the streets of Seireitei. With the lack of quality medical care, it would become commonplace for experimentation to take the place of conventional healing.

Divisions Seven and Nine, led by Captain Komamura, held the keep as they waited for all returning shinigami. Exposed on the hilltop and protecting a sparse path to a sewer entrance, they holed up in buildings and waited for the battle to come.

The end of Soul Society.

What was it all for?


	2. The Last Burrow

(Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach)

**The Last Burrow**

oOoOo

It had been a month since the last contact with anyone aboveground. Only the noises of digging gave any indication that there was anyone left alive up there. To be completely truthful, the occupants of the burrow weren't exactly confident that it was shinigami digging towards them anyway. A few times in the past, hollows had managed to break through into burrows like that, by coming through the ground.

If there were hollows coming, they would probably be moving faster. A giant worm would be able to eat its way down from the surface in less than a day. Soi Fong's sealing spell had stopped that though, it did something to stop the hollows from eating their way through. Afterwards, the only access points were the established manholes, far from the current position of the shinigami occupying the tunnels. Casting said spell had knocked her out for a few days. The digging must be coming from somewhere else underground.

Kenpachi didn't profess to completely understand how any of it worked. Understanding demon arts was never one of his skills, no matter what his obscene amounts of reiatsu implied about skills. That was what everyone else was for; he was just here to slaughter hollows at unmatched speed. Kenpachi was the instinct of the group; if he said that hollows were coming, than the hollows were coming.

Perhaps that was the scary part. He didn't sense a hollow coming, but what else would be digging its way towards these burrows?

The last bastion up aboveground had been the Twelfth Division Research Sector. Kurotsuchi, Kyoraku, Ukitake, and Soi Fong had turned the halls of the research and development department into a hardened war factory. Kenpachi had fought there many times; the mixture of chemical warfare with Kurotsuchi's menagerie of creations had become familiar. As they were picked off slowly in the room-to-room fighting, the numbers of shinigami simply got lower and lower. Finally, Kenpachi had retreated with Soi Fong and a few others to the tunnels after a direct assault by Aizen.

The people left behind had been a valuable scout tower on the surface. Kyoraku, Nemu, and Kurotsuchi had led the brave few in the sneaky movements through the deep rooms beneath the Twelfth Division. Using various ventilation shafts they had managed to check the surface and give updates on the situation outside. That was back when there was still enough of the shinigami alive to perform strike raids on the hollows. The month-long radio silence implied that the battle was over. Were they dead, or had the communications unit been irreparably damaged? After so long, had Kurotsuchi really died?

In all honesty, the idea of outliving the incredibly resilient Twelfth Division Captain was pretty appealing. The myriad sandbox of battles that they had been involved in together had created a grudging respect for the twisted scientist. Or at least more respect than that _Kisuke_ had deserved.

Fighting in the vicinity of Kurotsuchi always created a new element to the fights, as you kept having to dose yourselves with multicolored antidotes and get stabbed by some needle just to stay alive in the heavily contaminated environment. Inoculations would only cover so many of his poisons. Not to mention that it always paid to remember never to stray very far from Kurotsuchi, as most of his creatures were violent towards anything a certain distance from him.

That man would just never die. Bleeding to death on the ground, cut in half, poisoned beyond all repair, or driven insane by strange attacks; he would, without fail, change into that strange amorphous blob and be back to battle within the next day or so. Kenpachi knew that no matter how much he flirted with death, he wasn't quite prepared to make love to death the way the sadistic Twelfth Division Captain was.

Underground, life had become much simpler.

They would go through the maze like sewer and burrow complex in search of any form of sustenance. Kill every hollow or arrancar you come in contact with. Return to the base. Sleep, repeat actions tomorrow.

The occupants of the last burrow were no longer the proud members of the Gotei 13. They had been reduced to a bunch of ragged guerrilla fighters. The titles of Captain or Vice-Captain had become mere formalities to the past, since there weren't enough people to fill a squad anymore. There really wasn't much left of a command structure, everyone had become familiar with their companions in the time fighting from burrow to burrow.

~OOOOOOO~

"Zaraki-taicho."

"Neh, Retsu…" Kenpachi looked at her lazily, "Didn't I tell you to call me Kenpachi when we're alone?"

Matsumoto laughed at his joke, but it was a hollow, broken laugh. The joke had been made many times before, but laughing at something was better than laughing at nothing.

"The sound is getting closer," Unohana continued, calmly holding her sword in a relaxed position.

"It doesn't feel like a hollow."

"Z-zaraki-taicho, are you sure?" Hanataro was still a nervous young man, unless he was fighting or healing.

"If you're just gonna keep asking him, why don't you just throw a bomb at it?" Renji's voice had gotten no less sarcastic over the time since his return to Soul Society.

"But if it's Kurotsuchi-taicho!"

Kenpachi snorted, "If Kurotsuchi can't live through a damn bomb after everything _he's_ survived, I think he deserves to die," grinning, he elaborated, "See, it's kinda like if you threw a bomb a me, and I died."

"Shut up Zaraki," Hisagi's scarred and tattooed face was hidden behind a mask, but the irritation in his voice was obvious, "Hanataro, if you throw a bomb at the wall then you'll tell every hollow in these damn sewers where we are."

"Hai! Hisagi-fukutaicho!"

Kenpachi grinned at Hisagi, who simply sighed in reply. "No, I still won't make the stupid joke, and I don't want you to do it for me."

Matsumoto giggled again.

"Do you really think Mayuri is still alive? It's been weeks since we heard anything from him," Soi Fong asked curiously.

"If anyone from that place survived, it's him. Maybe Kyoraku…but since we heard Nanao didn't make it," Kenpachi mused.

"Tch, I survived just fine without Omaeda," Soi Fong shot back.

Kenpachi was silent, knowing where this discussion would lead. Unohana responded for him.

"Soi Fong, please refrain for tonight."

Losing her evening amusement, Soi Fong returned to playing with kidou.

Time passed. The scraping continued.

"Whoever that is, they had better bring sake, because they're giving me a headache," Matsumoto voice was tired, and she rubbed her head reflexively.

"Rangiku, you want sake all the time," Kira coughed quietly, his constant illness a chilling reminder of Ukitake.

"My brain needs sake!"

"Maybe you should have traded in your huge tits for a bigger brain," Soi Fong countered.

The other people in the room, knowing that the argument had only reached this point that much faster, rolled their eyes and ignored the two.

The noise at the wall changed suddenly, and nearly everyone locked his or her eyes to the wall. Hitsugaya ignored it, like he ignored most everything.

"Yo, Toshiro, we might have company."

Hitsugaya flicked his eyes back to the wall, preparing his zanpakuto for battle.

"Are any of you fools still alive?"

The voice relaxed them a little bit.

"Kurotsuchi! What's going on up top?" Soi Fong screeched.

The wall broke in, and Kurotsuchi fell out, along with a small creature that they immediately dismissed. He rose and looked around, taking in his surroundings. He brushed himself off a little bit before turning back.

"Couldn't tell you, I've been digging for two weeks," he called over his shoulder.

Unohana moved forward, preparing her medical skills, "Are you injured, or are there any other survivors?"

Kurotsuchi froze for a second, whispering something.

"Kurotsuchi-taicho?"

"I'm fine…but Nemu is…" he gestured at the odd creature that they now saw was a baby, crawling around.

"You bastard! What the hell did you –" Kenpachi cut Hisagi off.

"What happened up there?"

"I… don't know," Kurotsuchi slumped.

"What do you know?" Soi Fong snapped out.

"Soi Fong!" Unohana stepped in this time, "Kurotsuchi-taicho, what_ can_ you tell us about what happened?"

"Please, just call me Mayuri…" Matsumoto and Kenpachi let out laughs, but they were reduced to smiles at Mayuri's expression.

"It was Nemu I think. She might have used one of your crazy-ass bombs and I could only rebuild her like this. She must have customized it; because it took out the whole area…I was underground after the explosion, and I tried to rebuild her but…"

Mayuri slid to the floor, looking at his now crawling daughter. Suddenly he laughed, "I tried to save her, but now I get to raise her in this insane world."

Baby Nemu looked up at her blue-haired father, giggling with her gums out. Mayuri's laugh degenerated into sobs, and everyone simply looked down or away. They had all experienced similar situations, and after awhile it just became routine for someone to break down. Unohana would become frighteningly silent and clutch her hands helplessly. Kenpachi had not broken down since the last of his division had died. A few of the others entered battle rages and would berserk until the hollows were dead and they had to be dragged away.

Hitsugaya had not spoken much in many months; it was occasionally debated whether his silence was because of Hinamori or something else. Kenpachi and Unohana would watch him silently, as they had been present at the incident causing his mute behavior. Meanwhile, Hanataro seemed to be in a state of perpetual nervous breakdown.

"Da-Da!"

Nemu's words broke the tableau, and Unohana smiled as she approached the baby. "Can I?"

"Please do, as I know hardly anything about caring for children."

This raised the question of how he had raised Nemu in the first place, but there was more pressing issues.

"Kenpachi, I have something for you," Mayuri's face broke into a grin that went from ear to ear in his eerie fashion.

Kenpachi raised an eyebrow speculatively, having spent enough time around the man to no longer be unnerved by his quirks.

Giggling, he continued, "Actually…it's for the whole world, but you have to use it."

Everyone looked at the man, wondering what he was talking about. Soi Fong was there with a snappy comeback.

"So you got us all a present, but Kenpachi's the only one who gets to play with it?" she said sarcastically, "How cute, male bonding of the highest level."

Matsumoto dissolved back into laughter, while a few of the others gave Mayuri equally sarcastic glares.

"You know, I don't think I want to watch Zaraki-taicho and Kurotsuchi-taicho _play_ together, no matter what present _I_ get out of it; maybe I'll go for a stroll or something," Renji rose to his feet and rolled his eye.

"Soi Fong! Renji, you don't understand, he can go back and kill Aizen," Mayuri was giddily excited.

"Go back?"

"Kill Aizen?"

Kenpachi frowned at this, "Mayuri…" he tried to formulate what needed to be said, "Are you sure that you aren't high on any of your weird-ass toys or poisons?"

"If I was that high then I think I would be trying to use it myself, instead of foisting it off on _you_ of all people. I might even be looking for Byakuya to run it," Mayuri stroked his chin thoughtfully.

Kenpachi sighed, looking around the room at his companions. Most of them were somewhat used to the pale man's near insanity, but in a few eyes he saw a flash of something new. Maybe it was hope. Mayuri's words had unnerved everyone.

"Take a break Mayuri. You look beat," Kenpachi instructed the man shortly.

"Kenpachi!"

"Sleep for awhile, then we'll talk about it. You look like you've been eaten by wolves," he grunted, turning away, "Hanataro, take care of him for tonight. I'm going hunting."

Watching Kenpachi's retreating back, Mayuri paused for a moment. Then he tore after Kenpachi into the tunnels.

"Kurotsuchi-taicho! Ah! I meant Mayuri-taicho!" Hanataro called after him.

"Damn fools, all of them," Soi Fong whispered, even as she chanted out a little piece of kidou to stick itself to Mayuri's back.

"Hanataro. Let them go for now. They'll be back," Unohana's quick command stilled the other healer, "Play with Nemu if you need something to do."

Hanataro scrambled over to Nemu, his zanpakuto strapped to his back.

"Hai, Unohana-taicho! Nemu-chan, look over here!"

Kira coughed, countering Matsumoto's giggle. He glanced over at the now moving trio of babysitters and baby, noticing that Mayuri had brought some things with him.

"Hisagi. Renji. Let's check out his tunnel," Kira called out, spitting out some blood from his cough.

"Hai."

"Che."

"I'm coming too!" Matsumoto cried.

Shrugging, Kira moved to clear out the stuff that Mayuri had brought down with him. Taking a second to watch Hanataro clap and stick his tongue out at Nemu, he wondered at the insanity of it all.

~OOOOOOO~

It had been a long time since the sun had shined on Kenpachi, between his scars he was starting to get pale. His bells no longer bounced in time with his silent movements, and his eye patch had been lost to the battlefield awhile ago. That long hair which had once stood so proudly, a staple of his tough look, was raggedly cut short, waving around just high enough to be out of his eyes. His formerly ragged captain's jacket had been reduced to a vest, which had been torn and patched so many times that it, was nearly impossible to discern the original fabric. Only the faded symbol of "Eleven" on the back remained - testament to the resilience of his division, surviving with the lowest numbers of casualties after that first night.

The fact that they then had the lowest numbers of people to lose helped immensely.

Overall, time had not been very kind to any of the survivors of the occupation of Soul Society. Kira's cough was considered a minor inconvenience, as he had quickly learned to fight around it, and even had several pills he could take to lessen the problems.

Compared to Soi Fong's missing arm, it was a slight irritation. Forced to relearn how to fight with only one hand, Soi Fong learned to cast demon arts with her stump. She occasionally referred to it as a "tribute" to the late Kukaku, in honor of Yoruichi-sama. Her subsequent mastery of complex spells and the title of God of Flash contributed to her continued survival.

Hisagi had built a helm from the remnants of various hollow masks, masking both his face and his eyes from his enemies. A double tribute to his two captains, to whom he had dedicated his life and body to, and always respected through his time as a shinigami. Both outcasts…but only one was a traitor.

Renji's rebuilt eye was an strange contraption. Devised by Kurotsuchi during one of the first times skimming through Kisuke's notes; it was nonetheless a rough device, without much time for testing or refinement. The headgear that affixed it to his skull made his looks even more threatening, contrasting his tattoos with a strange mechanical construct. Renji had taken over as the captain of the Sixth Division deserters for a short time.

Something had passed between Matsumoto and Gin on the field. She had degenerated into a giggling, twitching wreck after that battle, and had to be dragged into the tunnels for one last time. In battle she would stand still, her zanpakuto ripping apart anything getting too close. Her outfit was no longer quite so extravagant, with her breasts bound painfully and long pants covering her legs entirely.

Between her giggles she kept track of her captain. As the only remaining team of captain and vice-captain, the Tenth Division was respected as a decisive battle team. Hitsugaya's silence did little to stop the roaring ice from his sword, though it had been a long time since anyone had seen his Bankai. The two Fourth Division members, his own vice-captain, and the captain of the Eleventh Division maintained the mute captain. Without them, he may have been lost to the tunnels a long time ago.

Unohana and Hanataro's healing skills had kept the ragged team alive through the war, though their fighting skills had also become rather quick. Hanataro's former habit of forgetting his zanpakuto had long since been corrected, and everyone who had never believed Unohana could _fight_ with her blade had forgotten that all the captains had once fought hollows with their divisions. Unohana's nodachi and Hanataro's scalpel had both become feared throughout the ranks of the arrancar.

Everyone's skills had improved, as they refined techniques and became not just more familiar with their swords, but closer to them as well. They needed their blades to survive. Many had achieved Shikai – or had revealed it – during the early battles. No one really had the time to search for Bankai, but a few did achieve it on the battlefield. Kenpachi would make joking comments about the events, offering to throw people to the arrancar if they wanted to improve their zanpakuto.

Everyone knew that none of them had been so cheaply bought. Nor had they been easy to gain, and it was mostly people who were already well practiced who had developed so quickly. The Eleventh Division had basically spawned Shikai as a group after that first battle, and through the next battles they only got better. There still wasn't enough to really help though. It got to the point where everyone could plow through any number of nameless hollows, and possibly even a Menos or two.

The higher level hollows were the problem, Adjuchas and Vasto lordes. Not to mention the Arrancars as a whole. Aizen, Gin, and Tosen provided the icing on the cake though. When they appeared in battle, it was usually to annihilate their old companions, or occasionally offer a hand of truce to those deemed "worthy".

The penalty for refusal was death.

Every last one of the survivors – though Nemu was no longer capable of accepting – had been offered a place among the Espada. If only they would swear fealty to Aizen and turn on the shinigami, they could live in his beautiful world. Filled with Tosen's unrelenting justice and Gin's annoying words. Ruled by Aizen's enormous ego.

Kenpachi had laughed at the offer. Unohana had politely refused. Hisagi still has nightmares about the day that Tosen offered his hand. Hanataro's stuttering apology had thrown Gin into fits of laughter. Soi Fong's scream of rage and frustration had made Aizen smile, even as he brutally crushed her head into the ground with his foot.

Wondering why you were alive had become a common pastime.

Aizen could always breed more hollows. So the armies they faced were unending. It was easy to figure out that the day that Aizen decided to destroy them he would simply flood the sewers with hollows and take them apart, bit-by-bit.

Any new arrivals to Soul Society always came above them, so there were no reinforcements.

No matter how many creatures Kurotsuchi made, it would still be impossible to overwhelm Aizen.

Occasionally, Renji would curse Ichigo…and Rukia for that matter. The fool's errand to Hueco Mundo had meant he was away for the first battles, and he swore that he would have made a difference. Perhaps time had made him foolish, since changing Byakuya's opinion was nearly impossible, even for his vice-captain. Ichigo may have helped a bit, and seeing the boy develop into a strong shinigami in the space of a week made them believe that maybe he could have beaten Aizen with just a bit more practice.

That kind of gnawing insanity ate away at them. Trapped underground, hunted by groups of hollows or arrancar, the survivors were slowly going completely crazy.

Watching everything you love die helps that. Being overwhelmed and helpless as they tear apart every person you ever knew and cared about. Trying to heal that which can't be healed until you're just pumping spirit power into dead bodies. Rebuilding a daughter from the giblets that comprise the last pieces of her body.

They fight, because when they are blindly consumed by the reflexive actions of killing and defending there is nothing to remember. Besides the Tenth Division team, everyone else fights almost completely independently, simply to avoid killing each other with their reflexes. It is common practice to allow everyone at least a minute before entering a five-meter radius around each other. They can recognize the reiatsu of their companions, but trained muscles and spell reflexes make it so they act first and think later.

And if they started killing each other… what would stop them from killing themselves?

~OOOOOOO~

"Kenpachi!"

Kenpachi stopped, realizing that Mayuri wasn't going to stop following him until he spoke his piece.

"Listen to me! It _will _work!"

"Okay Mayuri. Explain what you've created. Since you seem in such a hurry," Kenpachi growled out.

Mayuri made a face, "**I** didn't really come up with it. It was a part of Kisuke's notes that barely made sense for awhile."

Leaning against the wall and sighing slightly, Kenpachi prepared for a long explanation.

Noticing that Kenpachi seemed ready to listen, Mayuri began talking quickly.

"Kisuke wrote a lot of notes about things that were totally worthless, like breeding shinigami with humans, so there was quite a bit that was useless. He did do a study of time, but scrapped a lot of his research because it required so much power. In fact, most of the data revolved around the skills of Yoruichi and a Isshin Kurosaki."

Kenpachi raised an eyebrow, "Kurosaki?"

"Yeah, I was confused too. The man disappeared of an indefinite leave of absence following the research experiment. But it definitely seems to be the father of that Kurosaki. He had an equally ridiculous level of spirit power too. Aizen was his vice-captain for a little while, which might explain how he got any information about the Hougyoku. Testing his bankai on his captain seems insane, but…" Mayuri trailed off, considering the idea.

Kenpachi grunted, interrupting the scientist before he got lost in his thoughts, "But these notes led to the device…how?"

"Well, you heard that when the Kurosaki kid had his bankai going, he could move so fast he was almost occupying two places at the same time, right? It appears that Yoruichi had, in her prime as "God of Flash", been able to replicate that feat with another technique. Kisuke started to work on a derivative of flash-steps that would allow anyone to do this. The research did produce results, but they were virtually useless, a waste of spirit power when the normal flash-steps would allow almost the same results with exponentially less power. Your own flash steps are also wasteful, but allow for more movement besides the flash step…"

Kenpachi glared at the man. The time spent buried in research journals creating weird shit had made him very thorough in explaining things to his companions. Especially because he was now _concerned_ for their continued survival, Mayuri found himself explaining **exactly** what his stuff did, so his fellow fighters would know when to dose themselves with antidotes.

"Mayuri, just tell me what it does."

Kenpachi's curiosity was a little bit spiked, but he knew that Soi Fong would grill the man later.

"Kisuke finally created a combination of demon arts and seals that seemed to send someone back in time."

"What? Impossible!" Soi Fong finally wandered out of the shadows, "A technique like that would never be hidden away – "

"Like the Hougyoku would never be hidden away?" Mayuri interrupted her with a curious voice.

"Shut up! This is totally different. There was no practical use for the Hougyoku. But to travel back in time? You could fix anything you wanted."

"The technique was worthless though! The research was expensive and wasteful! It took more than just a captain-class shinigami to run the seals required to activate it. It took someone with a ridiculous amount of power. Even so, it seemed to destroy Kurosaki's ability to be a shinigami."

Soi Fong was silent for a moment. Kenpachi frowned.

"So why do you think _I_ can do it if this dream team can't."

"I don't…but you're the best chance we have. I can easily rebuild the device. It will take just a short while. Soi Fong should be able to do the kidou required, but it's an original piece and demon arts were never my specialty. You have at least twice as much power as Kurosaki did, so I think you'll survive intact."

Kenpachi was quiet for a moment, "So you're telling me…that you show up here after digging for two weeks and scaring the shit out of everyone. Then you fall out of a hole and start screaming about _saving everyone_, and you aren't even sure it **works**."

Kenpachi was shaking; his eyes glowed with suppressed reiatsu. Mayuri dropped to the floor with his head in his hands.

"Soi Fong, take this dumb ass back and get everyone calmed down. If you trust it, then look through the damn notes and work on it. But I am _not_ doing any kind of stupid tricks just so you can get me killed."

Kenpachi walked away quickly. His need to dive into battle was pounding in his ears as he wondered just _what_ that idiot was playing at. Soi Fong watched him go for a moment, mulling over the idea in her head. After a minute she sighed.

"Mayuri, you're an idiot, but let's go," she snapped out.

"Do you think he'll do it?" Mayuri's voice quavered with hope.

"I don't know if I _want_ him to do it," Soi Fong looked away, "Kenpachi is part of what keeps us together. It's like he's invincible or something, and if he died because we tried something stupid…"

"He won't."

"Are you sure of that?"

"…"

"Look, I'm as interested as you are, but if you get Kenpachi killed because of something stupid then we all die. He's the only one who can stand up to Aizen for any length of time. He's killed more Espada then any of us. Toshiro doesn't listen to anyone but Kenpachi and Unohana. We all owe him our lives…" Soi Fong looked down.

~OOOOOOO~

Kenpachi had started running, then flash stepping through the tunnels. No hollows appeared in his path. He followed the familiar paths through the old burrows and a few sewage tunnels. His mind remembered the last time they had any hope and the reality that occurred. Gin…

A group of hollows appeared at the edge of his senses, and Kenpachi forced his mind focus on the task at hand, instead of insane battles that ended badly for them.

Turn during the flash step. Twist. Begin unsheathing zanpakuto. Slash the mask in two. A scream indicates the successful destruction of a hollow

A second hollow attacked him from the side, and he swayed back, the breeze from the hollow's claws fluttering his captain's vest. Kenpachi stabbed his fist out, ripping through its mask. The dissolving hollow writhed around his fist.

"Why do they only send you weaklings down here?" he asked the air. The hollows around him didn't respond, twitching silently.

Sensing the familiar feeling of a Cero blasting at him, Kenpachi flicked out his open palm, already performing the reflexive control of spiritual power to divert the blast. He threw the blast at a hollow in front of him, and then resumed his normal battle whirlwind. Slashing and twisting around Kenpachi took out a hollow behind him.

The more powerful creature that had fired the Cero moved from the shadows, saying something to Kenpachi. What was it saying? Something about the justice of the Arrancar…

"Shut up."

Kenpachi extended his sword towards the creature and dashed forward. It unsheathed its own zanpakuto, speaking a release word.

The ringing sound of his sword being deflected surprised his conscious mind; but his unconscious abilities ignored it, already moving his fist to break the thing's face. His mind catching up with his body, he noticed that there was an odd substance covering his hand as it approached the creature's face.

He pulled back, watching its expression change to one of annoyance. Kenpachi decided to end this, so he whispered a word to his zanpakuto.

A weapon crushed through the body in front of him, tossing it into a wall. Kenpachi followed the hollow with his eyes as he raised the blade of his sword to his shoulder. It was ravaged as it screamed in pain. He ignored the last two hollows, knowing that they were already dead. One fell to the ground, mask disintegrating suddenly as it shivered. All he heard from the last one was whoosh of air, and a series of cracking sounds as it crashed to another wall. A voice whispered to him, but he ignored it with the ease of long practice.

Six more down. Unknown legions left. Kenpachi kept moving through the tunnels.

~OOOOOOO~

Back in the burrow, Unohana and Soi Fong shared a look. All of the remaining captains, besides Mayuri, had a spell on them so they knew the state of everyone's reiatsu. Actually Kenpachi didn't have a spell on the others, but his own intuition and spirit senses more than made up for it. Hitsugaya rose to his feet, wandering out of the burrow. Unohana returned to keeping an eye on Nemu, sitting in Hanataro's arms. Soi Fong started to continue her reading.

"Is it really okay for people to just _leave_ like that?" Mayuri asked nervously, "No one went anywhere alone topside…"

Soi Fong looked up at the strangely subdued captain, amused.

"Hitsugaya and Kenpachi can take care of themselves. We have a locating spell that lets us check on their reiatsu."

Mayuri returned to his own reading, occasionally examining one of his devices carefully.

"Kurotsuchi-taicho…what did you mean when you said, 'go back'?" Kira asked quietly.

Dropping his face slightly, Mayuri winced. "Ah…that was –"

"He's been working on something, so he got excited. Surely you understand. Don't you remember when you finally unlocked your Shikai?" Unohana made a little smile, "You were so tired but you still kept poking and prodding your nurses with it."

Kira flushed with shame. Renji and Matsumoto laughed at him, a little bit wistful as they remembered their own Shikai experiences. Hisagi snorted, irritated at the diversion.

"That doesn't tell us _what_ he's been working on," Hisagi growled out.

"Neh, Hisagi-_chan_. It's not done anyways, so sit down and shut up," Soi Fong made sure to make it sound as parental as possible.

Reiatsu spiking, Hisagi opened his mouth as he turned his head over at the small woman. He then closed his mouth as he felt the prickle that signified her stump pointed directly at him. Kira nervously swallowed, stuttering out an apology for the question. Renji and Matsumoto looked at the ground, now curious about the issue.

"Kisuke Urahara, you remember him Renji?" Mayuri stated the question loudly, announcing it to the room. Soi Fong glared at him, while Unohana sighed.

Confused, Renji nodded his head. Renji had returned after Urahara and Yoruichi, and he had descended into the sewers to join Yamamoto rather than hole up in the Twelfth Division headquarters or the hospital. As such, he only had a passing familiarity with Mayuri's various creations beyond the eye that resided in his skull.

"It came from Urahara's notes?" Kira asked.

Mayuri nodded. "The notes covered an experimental test that succeeded, but it also destroyed the shinigami's abilities for a long period of time."

"So what is it?" Hisagi insisted.

"The notes were over a form of time travel."

"How long were his abilities gone?" Renji queried, an odd look in his face.

Mayuri looked down. Soi Fong answered for him.

"One-hundred and fifty years."

Matsumoto burst out laughing, and Soi Fong glared over at her. Several of the others had their eyes wide open at the implication. Unohana had been informed of the situation by Mayuri, so she was unfazed by the remarks. That long without shinigami powers would be like asking for death.

"Of course, the shinigami stopped _trying_ to use his powers, so he may not have been going through the correct therapy," Mayuri winced at his pathetic defense.

Rolling her eyes, Soi Fong shut down his argument, "_Of course_, he only went back in time **eight** **hours** to the best of our knowledge."

Everyone's eyes widened. Hanataro was feeding Nemu with a bottle, so he quietly whispered one thing to the burrow.

"It's the only chance we've got left."

~OOOOOOO~

Somewhere below the city, Kenpachi raised his head to see a hollow encased in ice shatter on the wall.

"Toshiro."

The young genius simply met Kenpachi's eyes.

"Hmmm…. I suppose I have been out for awhile."

Hitsugaya just shrugged.

"I feel a little better though. The Arrancar are getting harder to kill these days."

Hitsugaya simply stood there, watching Kenpachi. Kenpachi sighed in response.

"Did that jackass explain everything?"

Shaking his head, Hitsugaya moved to the side of the tunnel. Kenpachi gave him a short reply.

"Time-travel. Requires lots of power. Messed up the guy who did it."

Kenpachi looked at the floor, while Hitsugaya watched him carefully.

"Its funny. I really felt it for a moment there. The hope. Then I felt that same desperation again. So I got angry with him. That desperation has killed so many of us…" Kenpachi grinned for a second, "But it's also killed so many of _them_."

Looking into the distance, Kenpachi simply watched the now dry sewers for a moment. Hitsugaya's eyes unfocused, remembering the desperation well. Kenpachi signaled to the small captain that they would be going back. After walking for a short while, Kenpachi spoke.

"Save everyone."

Hitsugaya flicked his eyes over, but kept moving. Kenpachi spoke three words after awhile.

"It sounds nice."

Swiftly tracking through the tunnels, the two were met by small group of hollows.

Instantly acting, Kenpachi slashed one across the face while Hitsugaya dashed forward, unsheathing his sword.

Hitsugaya cut his own hollow down with a rising strike, while the chain from his sword caught another.

Kenpachi swung his sword vertically, using his reiatsu as a force to break the mask just out of reach. The hollow wrapped up in a chain broke into little shards of ice when Hitsugaya tapped it with the hilt. Looking over at the last hollow, which would be a lower level Arrancar, the two captains launched themselves at it.

Low, Hitsugaya cut out the legs while catching the waist with his chain.

High, Kenpachi stabbed forward several times. Pinpointing the shoulders and eyes, Kenpachi methodically destroyed his targets.

As it was sliding apart at its legs, the Arrancar started to scream something. Hitsugaya stabbed his sword back up through the back of its throat, cutting the voice off.

The now-frozen Arrancar stopped, halted by the vicious attacks.

Flicking their swords to get rid of any clinging substances, they resumed their movement through the tunnels.

The silence surrounded them, Kenpachi lost in his thoughts. Hitsugaya paused.

"We can't do this forever."

His voice was raspy after so long being unused. Kenpachi looked down at him and nodded.

"We will die down here like this," Hitsugaya stated.

Wincing, Kenpachi looked away. They both knew it was the truth; their strategy sessions had given them a mutual understanding of each other. They had learned from each other, while teaching each other.

"He's right, Zaraki-taicho."

Unohana approached them, emerging from the shadows above. Hitsugaya and Kenpachi watched her approach, unsurprised by her presence.

"It's driving us crazy. Being confined like this. In a few more weeks Aizen won't have to kill us because we'll start killing each other," she sighed, "I can only heal the injuries of the body, not of the mind."

Kenpachi growled, "Do you want us to go topside? We'll die up there."

"You have changed, Zaraki-taicho. There was a time when all you cared about was strength and fighting."

Kenpachi glared at her, "We have all changed."

Unohana looked down, knowing the truth of his statement. "I am sorry, Kenpachi."

"You remember all of it just as clearly as I do. Or as clear as he does," Kenpachi accused.

"Matsumoto is almost gone," Unohana diagnosed.

Kenpachi snorted, "So? I have been told that I am almost gone for years now. Toshiro has spoken more today than he has in a long time. _You_…" he trailed off, as Unohana unyieldingly held his gaze.

Kenpachi looked away, knowing that it was different for everyone.

"Kenpachi," Hitsugaya looked at him, "Do it."

Watching as Hitsugaya retreated to the camp, Kenpachi wondered if the man was right.

"Think about it at least. _They_ would believe in you. They would expect you to never give up."

Kenpachi laughed at the thought. Unohana watched him. "Retsu-_chan_, what do you know about how they lived their lives?"

"Zaraki-taicho," Unohana admonished him, "I may not have known them that well over all the years I _could_ have. But I remember them all," she lowered her eyes then, "Just like I remember so many of my own people. I have seen several of my Vice-Captains die in the line of duty. You forget that though you have fought and killed many more than I have, I have still lived through many more wars then you."

"Do not assume that my suffering is any less than yours, just because I was not as close to my people as you were," at this point, Kenpachi was growling at the usually subdued woman as she picked him apart, piece by piece. "Would you abandon your own teachings," she paused, her eyes glimmering with rage, "Ken_-Chan_?"

Kenpachi grabbed her by the throat, even as she raised her zanpakuto with one hand, preparing to release it. They watched each others eyes, feeling the pain that raged within each of them. Kenpachi slowly released her, knowing that she had the upper hand. "Foolish woman, shut up before I kill you..."

Unohana shoved him back against the opposing wall, snarling out a retort, "Do not entertain dreams that you are the only one here who has been so grievously hurt by Aizen Sosuke, Zaraki Kenpachi. You are the only one here with enough power to have any chance of success. If you want to throw that away then we can kill each other now."

She pressed her sword to his throat, threatening him to refuse her. Kenpachi watched her for a moment, feeling the blood trailing down his body. He grinned at her, then leaned over her shoulder to whisper in her ear, "Hey Retsu. Do you want to hear the whisperings of _Bourei_?" she paled, releasing him. He grabbed her and reversed the hold, keeping her sword held up between them. Pressing the jagged edge of his sword against her throat, Kenpachi held her as she helplessly went limp.

As Kenpachi shifted to get his leverage, her sword fell from between them. The clattering brought him back to reality, and he dropped his own sword as well. Slumping against the wall above her, he rested his head against the wall as tears poured down her face.

"I'm sorry, Zaraki-taicho. I don't know what..." she trailed off even as Kenpachi wrapped his arms around her. She shivered as she held herself to the Eleventh Division Captain.

"Retsu... haven't I told you a million times. Call me Kenpachi when we're alone."

She chuckled, even as silent tears fell down both of their faces as the two captains let go their worries for the moment.

~OOOOOOO~

When they returned, Kenpachi said one thing, "Mayuri, make it work."


	3. Dirge for the Strongest

**Chapter 3: Dirge for the Strongest**

****oOoOo

The last time many of the survivors would ever see the sky. It was a bleak night outside, dry and clear in the manner of an empty desert. The stars were shining brightly and the moon waxed deep in the starlit sky. None of it really mattered to the shinigami left. All they had left was the fighting. War, blood, and death. They only had each other to hold onto.

"Taicho!" Yumichika's feminine falsetto came out in strained tones through the night air, "Take her and go!"

Zaraki slid out from his hiding place near the alley wall. Blood was sporadically dotted across his chest and several cuts silently pulsed out dribbles of blood. He looked over at the other man quizzically, only changing expression when he noticed the woman clutching to Yumichika's shirt. She was all bundled up in a blanket, her face watching the chest with blank eyes. Part of her clothing trailed from the wrap, a bloody remainder of whatever she survived.

"She was hidden in Gin's rooms, it was easy to get in," Yumichika held the woman out for Kenpachi to take, before continuing his story, "The guards there are still searching for us," the man looked shaken, so something must have gone wrong.

_Gin's death had not been easy, but the smiling man was very subdued during the fight. His demeanor was very different from any of the other Arrancar that were killed. The formerly vicious grin had changed to a sickly smile, with his eyes red and open. He was more remorseful than Tousen, but fought like he had nothing left to lose. No one had ever understood what truly drove the man in the first place. Not even the people closest to Gin had any idea what was going through his head when he left with Aizen._

_The last major raid was conducted as usual. The teams split up into pairs to perform several coordinated strikes. Rangiku and Kira were a team, since Toshiro and Kenpachi were working as the major distraction for the other strikes at infrastructure. Everything went according to plan, until the two vice-captains ran into Ichimaru Gin near the extraction point. Gin was silent for the short scuffle. Rangiku was emotional enough to make up for Gin's apathy, since she felt somewhat responsible for the whole situation. Her emotions clouded her ability to fight the traitor-captain, and she was easily dispatched. Kira was no real help, and the two were soundly defeated before the rest of the strike team met up with them. When they finally did, Matsumoto was missing; it was only finding Kira's unconscious body that alerted them to the appearance of Gin in the failing light of the sunset. _

_They had an idea of where Gin was quartered in Soul Society, so several shinigami immediately moved to chase after the missing vice-captain. Upon reaching the lodging, they were immediately confronted with the improved Gin, and were almost beaten back by his viciously quick strikes. Hitsugaya was the one who finally managed to catch and trap Gin. Enraged over Hinamori's broken mind – and body after she was captured – Toshiro made a giant wall of ice to isolate Gin from the rest of his support. Without support, and without his high mobility, the traitor-captain was easy pickings – or at least__** easier**__ pickings – for Kenpachi. The "Strongest" would brutally remove both of Gin's arms to ensure the former captain fell._

_After that, Kenpachi decapitated the corpse. Just to make sure._

A rustling sound - the hollows moving towards their location - brought them back from their memories. Kenpachi eased the woman into his arms, giving her a cursory inspection before raising an eyebrow at his last living subordinate. The effeminate man carefully uncurled the woman's hand from his shirt, touching it against Kenpachi's chest until it latched onto its newest transport. Flicking his eyes to the trail of blood, the captain started to make a more exacting inspection of the woman in his arms, before a smaller hand stopped him. Yumichika shook his head, giving a rushed explanation, "She seems mostly uninjured, but I don't know what happened to her after she was captured."

Kenpachi nodded, jerking to the side as an arrancar jabbed a blade at the now-empty space. Yumichika neatly sliced across the hollow's mask, watching carefully as it began to disintegrate. Yumichika's cuts began healing quickly as his hair took on a much sleeker quality. Kenpachi watched the masks closing in around him, even as he shifted his feet to be back to back with his well-groomed subordinate. Several other hollows simply broke apart from unseen attacks.

Glancing around for a second, Yumichika inspected the opposition. Then he let his zanpakuto fall into its final released state, the feathery blade dispersing into a pair of elaborate fans. He nudged his captain as Kenpachi started to ease Matsumoto down, forcing him to hold the woman closer. Standing tall over his captain, Yumichika made a lightning-quick strike with the pommel of one "blade". The hollows growled threateningly in response, even as the arrancar leader brushed off the attack with a laugh.

"Neh, Kenpachi… have I ever asked you for anything?" Yumichika's voice was tight, the sound barely above a whisper from his whitening lips. The power rippling from the pretty young man was diverted cleanly around Kenpachi's body.

Kenpachi growled, raising an arm across his body to swing his blade in a clean arc, "I don't think this is the time for a slumber party," several hollows are vaporized by a blast of reiatsu. The captain set himself into a wide stance, holding the woman tight with one arm and his sword horizontal in front of her.

"Taicho, leave me."

Kenpachi twisted around to look at Yumichika out of the corner of his eye. Then he steadily watched as the man danced around him, using graceful movements and strokes to decimate the hollows. The dance was an old one; Yumichika would only perform it when they got ridiculously drunk. Kenpachi relaxed his body, watching the play for a moment.

Yumichika's hands moved in enticing patterns, waving his peacock-feathered Bankai like the instruments of a geisha or kabuki dancer he invited the enemies to their demise. The air rippled with rainbow energy where the fans passed and the directed it in flowing waves. Hollows disintegrated before him, even as more arrancar appeared on nearby rooftops. Moving in a somewhat circular pattern, he expression changed from the hardened sergeant that he was to that of a beautiful young woman. As the hollows disintegrated, Yumichika's appearance became surreal and more feminine. Makeup adorned his face in synchronized strokes, giving him a pale, soft beauty.

Slowly moving to a stop in front of his captain, he lowered his eyes to the ground in deference to the man he had chosen to follow for so many years. "If you stay, we will all die today. They will flood the tunnel shaft before you can close it up. We will be overrun eventually, too many followed me here from Aizen's base," Yumichika turned his head up to his captain, keeping the movement flowing with the rhythm of the dance as he slowly raised his eyes to make eye contact from his demure pose. "This is my fight. Will you interfere?"

His mouth inches from his captain's, Yumichika's eyes were like deep pools leading to infinity. It would be easy to get lost within them, filled with passion and longing.

Kenpachi does not hesitate, he moved for the opening.

And Yumichika continued his deadly dance.

Kenpachi looked back once, as he hung himself down from the lip of the sewer access. The battle was getting more heated, as more creatures joined the fight. Blows and wounds were shrugged off and melded with the rapid beat. The dance only sped up, flashing waves and lights in a flowing pattern surrounding the womanly figure. Then, Yumichika looked him in the eye, a last desperate look, filled with pain, loneliness, and fear. His expression changed when he saw Kenpachi watching him during those few seconds. The dance became a whirlwind, blurring colors and actions as he tore through a small army of arrancar, giving his everlasting soul to the fight.

His heart was no longer afraid, because to fear a death in combat was something that Kenpachi – and the Eleventh Division - never taught him. His dance was that of his fearful youth, but his passion was the passion he held for a long life with friends and comrades. It was the only death meant for any of them – to be honored, to be remembered by the comrades who loved you.

Yumichika was not alone in death. He died with every other member of the Eleventh alongside him, because that was where he belonged. Someone would remember him. And for a moment, he could be a Kenpachi. The strongest.

~OOOOOOO~

A drip on his face and a fuzzy consciousness greeted Kenpachi as he woke up. The dreams never ended, and this forced sleep wasn't helping anything. To make sure he would be at maximum possible energy, Mayuri had started drugging Kenpachi asleep. Kenpachi also received the best food they could find. Knockout drugs and the best fungus to be found, this was the best – and only – vacation of Zaraki's entire godforsaken life.

A voice giggled above him, and he realized who woke him up. Opening his eyes, Kenpachi was met with the huge eyes of a drooling Matsumoto. Her vaguely organized hair falls in his face, and he swats at the spit drooping from her mouth. "Damnit Rangiku!" he growled out, "Why aren't you on patrol with Toshiro?"

She jumped to her feet, her giggles never ceasing. Kenpachi rolled his eyes as he watches the crazed young woman. Levering himself up, he gingerly rose to his feet, careful to avoid the madwoman. Seeing him get up, Hanataro rushed over from the corner, "Sorry, Zaraki-taicho," bowing to the captain, even though Kenpachi waved him off, "I was trying to keep track of Matsumoto-fukutaicho and Nemu-chan, but Nemu crawled away when I was asleep, and I wasn't paying attention to Matsumoto, and…"

Kenpachi snapped his fingers, silencing the neurotic young man. Matsumoto dissolved into a puddle of laughter on the floor, which drew an annoyed glance from Kenpachi and a quick jump to catch the woman from Hanataro. "So where's everyone else?" Kenpachi drawled out, noticing the lack of presences in the burrow.

"Ah, they were going to scout and they left me behind!" Hanataro's voice had always been this cheerful. If you wanted to have a comforting doctor, he was definitely the best person out there – at least until he started operating, at which point most people became somewhat terrified of his demeanor. If you wanted a doctor who was a master at healing people, Unohana was the first choice. If you needed someone with psychotic, self-destructive tendencies, Hanataro was first the person to look for.

Kenpachi raised an eyebrow, looking over at the bouncy – yet droopy – Seventh Seat. "So you're the babysitter?" Hanataro's eyes widened considerably, it was almost like the little man didn't expect that.

"No!" he fiercely objected, "I am the provisionary caretaker for you three, since Matsumoto is not very good at scouting, you have to sleep, and Kurotsuchi-fukutaicho is –" his eyes went wide as he remembered what he was doing, "**Missing!**" Hanataro immediately leapt up, dropping the now-hysterically laughing woman in his rush to find the infant vice-captain. "Nemu-chan! Nemu-chan!"

Kenpachi rubbed his head in irritation, "Oh well, at least I'll get some exercise," he looked down at Matsumoto and over at the impossibly flighty Hanataro. "Scratch that. A _lot_ of exercise." Itching his nose speculatively, he tried to focus on the reiatsu of the toddling vice-captain. "Hmm… She's pretty far away, I wonder how long he slept for." Striding the few steps over to the crazy girl, he lifted her arm up to get her off the ground and set her down firmly, "We're going to find that little girl," he focused on her eyes, willing her to understand the information, "Do you want to come?"

Matsumoto nodded, reducing her laughter to a small giggling fit. Kenpachi flicked his eyes over to the other man, shaking his head at the actions of the idiotic officer. "Hanataro!"

Hanataro jumped, saluting Kenpachi's tone, "Yes! Zaraki-taicho!"

"Nemu wandered off outside, get your zanpakuto and let's go find her," Kenpachi's voice was annoyed.

"But Matsu-"

Matsumoto jumped up and down, waving her arms from behind Kenpachi, "I'm coming with you guys!"

Kenpachi lackadaisically turned his head to the shocked man, raising a speculative eyebrow. Hanataro stood like a deer in the headlights for a moment, and then reeled in his sword from the cord attached to his wrist. He untied the sheath and quickly reattached it to his belt. Then he nodded with a military expression, marching towards the exit. "O.K.! Let's get moving!"

Kenpachi sighed, even as Matsumoto dissolved back into laughter. Moving at a steady pace, they started off into the tunnels. "Can you two find her?" Kenpachi asked absently, his senses trained on the various packs of hollows and arrancars hunting in the sewers.

"Ah!" Hanataro stopped suddenly, glancing back and forth as he tried to lock onto the feeling of that reiatsu. He sunk to the ground in sadness, his eyes already tearing up, "No! Nemu-chan is gone forever!"

Kenpachi's eye twitched in irritation, but a giggle cut into speech, interrupting his response, "Growl, Haineko." Kenpachi raised an eyebrow as Matsumoto's blade dissolved into the air surrounding them. Matsumoto licked one of her digits before pointing in an arbitrary direction, "Find the baby!"

"Matsumoto-fukutaicho! Thank you for helping find Kurotsuchi-fukutaicho!" Hanataro cried with joy, "Now Kurotsuchi-taicho will let me keep my organs." Kenpachi blinked, before walking ahead of the group, muttering about idiots and the people who listened to them. Matsumoto laughed, stumbling behind Kenpachi as she tried to keep up with the tall man's long stride.

"Wait up you two!" Hanataro held his zanpakuto in one hand as he rushed behind them.

Kenpachi looked back out of the corner of his eye at the seemingly clueless and clumsy man. Out of all the people in Soul Society, Yamada Hanataro was probably the last person expected to survive this long. Any of the vice-captains should have been a better bet. Hanataro wasn't young, he wasn't particularly powerful, and he certainly hadn't been anything special before the invasion. Getting to Seventh Seat was the crowning achievement of the man's life up until now. Hanataro had only reached Seventh Seat by living so long that he knew his way around everything better then a lot of better candidates.

Watching as Hanataro bickered quietly with the giggly vice-captain of the Tenth Division, Kenpachi considered everything that he knew about the chronically sleep-deprived man. Hanataro was pretty old for an average shinigami, most shinigami made it to a captain/vice-captainship before they hit one hundred years of age, or they were dead on the battlefield. Only perseverance could have let him survive as an unranked shinigami for over one hundred and fifty years. The man was even from Rukongai, so who knew how long he had spent out there. Hanataro rarely practiced using his zanpakuto, since it had always been a double-edged sword for him. He could heal as many wounds as he wanted to, but if he didn't inflict all of the wounds in combat, they would appear on his own body. It was somewhat difficult to find training partners for this sort of exercise, and Hanataro had spent many decades living in total fear of his own zanpakuto.

Throughout the invasion and occupation, Hanataro had been through a lot of fights, but he never tried to tangle with the traitor-captains. Yet that often meant that he would end up fighting powerful arrancar or high-level hollows instead. And he survived them all.

How could he change so much?

With a strange zanpakuto and the knowledge of the Shiba family bombs – the final gift from the dying Shiba Ganju -, Yamada Hanataro created his own fighting style. One part explosives, one part acrobatics, and one hundred percent suicide, his style of combat was based on the principle that he can heal any wound that doesn't kill him instantly. First, he blew everything up – including himself. Second, he healed himself. Third, he touched them with his scalpel and blew them up. All of that while he jumped, flew, bounced, and tore through people with his giant scalpel. He didn't use his scalpel to cut hollows, or impale arrancar; he just used his scalpel to blow them apart. If they hurt him, then it was one more wound to inflict back upon them.

So, Kenpachi was a little bit wary of the psychotic little man. Admittedly, Hanataro was also one of the most non-threatening individuals on the face of the earth. But in the last few years, Kenpachi had watched the submissive and seemingly weak man change into a vicious fighter who is unforgiving in combat. Few of the others had truly changed their whole perspective on fighting so completely. They simply got better at what they were already capable of. Hanataro reinvented himself on the battlefield.

"She's close," Rangiku's hoarse voice interrupted the contemplative silence. Her voice was tight and distant, remembering things that she would rather forget. Kenpachi kept his eyes forward when he moved to her side. He never wanted to look into her eyes and see the eyes staring out into nothingness. That same haunted expression of hopelessness that all of the shinigami wear from time-to-time. "There's a pack of hollows, with four -" Rangiku shook her head, "- No, six arrancar, coming from the south side of the tunnel."

Hanataro's eyes widened, and then his expression hardened into a focused grimace. He flicked his eyes from corner to corner, unconsciously measuring the tunnel for his free-for-all. Kenpachi laid a hand on his shoulder, causing the smaller man to flinch, "Remember, we can't let her get hurt." Hanataro nodded before taking a strong stride, whipping his arm out to drop a grenade into it. Grinning, Kenpachi strode behind him, and the two men stalked forward with Rangiku trailing behind them.

The tunnel ahead was a wide spot in the sewers, the nearly dried-out waterway forming a centerpiece for the coming battlefield. The walls were solid, and the toddler was curled up against a wall on the closest side to the shinigami. Swirling in the air in front of them is the dancing mirage of Rangiku's zanpakuto. The flecks of dust form a stretching cat, before disintegrating before a non-existent wind. It was everywhere now, particles floating in the air and waiting to strike.

Hanataro moved forward, carefully placing himself in a position to explosively launch his body across the canal. As the first hollow comes into view, he whipped a bola of explosives at the shocked creature. Catching the hollow around the mask and neck, Hanataro shouted out a kido with an outstretched hand. Struggling with the rope-bomb around its throat, the hollow was an easy target.

"**BOOM!**"

The sound rippled through the cavern, and conversation can be heard from behind the formerly occupied space. Kenpachi used shunpo to get across the canal, waiting behind a corner for the arrancar to hurry the hollows ahead of them. A body flew forward, and its mask immediately disintegrated in a mist of dark dust. The dying body fell below them into the canal, and the arrancar begin bickering again.

Hanataro rocked back and forth, antsy to begin his leap into combat. Making eye contact with Kenpachi, he jerked his head forward and grinned at the screams coming from the hollows. Behind him, Matsumoto knelt, the hilt of her zanpakuto clutched in her hands. Kenpachi rolled his eyes and leaned against the wall, and then he motioned Hanataro forward. Pumping his legs once, Hanataro launched his body across the canal with one hand stretched out with a grenade in it. Flying deep into the opposing tunnel, Hanataro dashed through the hollows until he found an arrancar.

Making a leap into the air, Hanataro shoved his hand into the creature's mouth, pulling the jawbone shut tightly over his wrist as he wrapped himself behind the arrancar's head. The explosion sent him careening into the tunnel walls, but his stump made contact with his zanpakuto and filled its gauge up to half. Pulling another grenade from his belt, Hanataro launched it at the enemy's feet while raising his trembling body from the floor. The small explosive landed in the middle of the hollows moving to attack him, and several were blown back into Rangiku's net of pain.

Waiting by the wall, Kenpachi barely twitched when the minced parts splattered the opposing wall. He simply watched Rangiku for any change in posture, a signal that Hanataro had gone too far again.

Again was the wrong word. Hanataro always went too far, cut too deep, and bled too much. Like the desperation in his attacks could make the whole world better.

Inside the tunnel, Hanataro threw himself at one of the arrancar. The arrancar had time to shift its mutated hand to intercept the crazed shinigami. Impaled upon the blades extending from the fist, Hanataro gave a gurgling giggle as his fresh hand rammed a fuse-less bomb into its mask. Another explosion tore apart its face, and he fell to the ground in a heap as the arm dissolved. Covered in blood from the arrancar, he lifted his sword with a trembling hand to heal his body.

A clawed foot stopped him. A crushing sensation on his upper thighs, Hanataro tried to lurch upwards, scrabbling at the leg with his scimitar and bleeding stump. A huge hand clenched around his upper body and yanked.

Outside, Rangiku whimpered and clutched herself tighter. Kenpachi moved in response. His form tearing through the floating dust, he arrived in time to see Hanataro's upper half crash into a wall. Ignoring the organs that were leaking from the man, Kenpachi whispered to the air, "Cut left."

Kenpachi went right, trusting his instincts. Spinning as he used shunpo, the captain slashed into the arrancar standing on Hanataro's legs. Blocked by an armored limb, Kenpachi roared as he followed through with a leg. Putting the force of his reiatsu behind it, he kicked the bone-encrusted creature into one of its companions. Still spinning from the momentum, Kenpachi let his body fly off the ground for a second. The arrancar pile-up struggled to separate before the captain struck. Kenpachi followed through, stalking forward as he readied his blade. His eyes were almost empty, the spark of battle barely visible in the depths. Carefully stabbing once, Kenpachi removed the top one from the world. A small blast shot up through the dissolving mist, making him growl in annoyance at his bleeding chest. A broken rib and a new scar. He stabbed again, finishing the fight before he turned to Hanataro's legs.

At the other end of the tunnel, the other two arrancar were confused by the flitting mirage of blades which obstructed their path and slaughtered the hollows. As the dust cleared, one noticed the kneeling woman across the channel and flew into a rage. Slavering in excitement, it tore through the needle wall. It ran and leapt into the air, a blade raised in triumph over the kneeling woman. Raising her head, Rangiku let loose a banshee scream, and the air turned into a blizzard. In a blizzard of blood, the arrancar filled the space over the dry canal. It rained underground, and the canal ran again. Ancient spells for sanitation finally had liquid to flow downstream, so it trickled down - like a little stream in a gutter.

Flinching, the final arrancar looked around nervously. This was never in the plan. They were just supposed to patrol and report back to Aizen-sama. The shinigami were a negligible risk, half-dead and almost extinct. When the "bloodhound" hollow picked up a trace of shinigami reiatsu, they were just supposed to check it out and report failure. No one was expected to actually _find_ a shinigami still alive. Here the shinigami were though, at least three of them. Shifting his eyes to the place that the half of a body had been thrown, he opened his mouth, "At least we killed-" then his eyes opened in shock.

Hanataro was there, smiling a grin full of bloody teeth. Touching the tip of his spear to a bloody stump of a hand, he kept both eyes on the last arrancar with a hungry expression. Before the creature's eyes, the stump bubbled and pulsed, finally bulging back into the shape of a hand. Stretching his fingers in a slow, relaxed manner, Hanataro raised the scalpel-spear to a throwing stance. "Killed one of us?" he questioned.

Then he threw the spear, hitting his target in the face. Easily penetrating the thick skull, the blade seemed to tremble for a moment. "Boom," Hanataro whispered. A blast of energy encompassed the head of the arrancar, and it seemed to simply fall to pieces before disintegrating.

Slumping to the ground, Hanataro's eyes went glassy and unseeing. Hands clutched to his sides, he spat out some blood before falling over. Kenpachi walked up behind the man, then threw the body over his shoulder and picked up Hanataro's errant zanpakuto. Movements relaxed, Kenpachi walked into the blood-painted canal. Rangiku stood now, but was giggling at something over by the wall. Shunpo took him across the canal, and he turned to see the woman cooing at the sleeping toddler.

"Rangiku," the woman's face never turned, but Kenpachi had her attention, "Pick up Nemu and let's go back to camp."

Nodding, Matsumoto bent over and carefully gathered the tiny child to her bosom. She held her close and whispered something to the sleeper. Kenpachi turned away from the maternal scene. It only brought back memories of his dead 'children', and a promise that Retsu had told him about. "I'm sorry, Nemu-chan," he said to the air, "We probably can't make the future a better place for you."

Setting a mild pace back to camp, Kenpachi focused on making his way back. Matsumoto's sweet nothings that she whispered filled the air with soothing sounds. Even in madness, Matsumoto was still a loving woman deep inside. Destiny had been cruel to all of them. The men that she loved were both consumed by their obsessions. One had died for them, and the other was almost better off dead. "Would there be hope for you if I went back?" Kenpachi mumbled. Would there be hope for all of them?

Just before reaching the camp, Matsumoto quickened her steps to walk beside him. Looking down at the woman, Kenpachi raised an eyebrow. Her eyes caught his. They were lucid eyes, full of sadness and hope. "You could make the past a better place for her."

Stepping into the camp, Kenpachi contemplated her words. The others were back now, and they hardly batted an eye at the four. After leaning Hanataro up against a wall, Kenpachi went back to his sleeping pad and waited for the sedative.

~OOOOOOO~

Winter in Soul Society was a lonely time. Before the invasion, every year the Eleventh Division tried to spend most of it completely trashed. The dead time, where everyone that couldn't secure a little bit of food and water inevitably died out. All of them had watched people dying from cold, hunger or thirst on the frozen ground of Rukongai. Hell, Kenpachi could even vaguely remember a time where he was lying out on the cold ground, bleeding from a fight and wondering if this was the end.

The winter was even lonelier now. Squads from different divisions had been consolidated to form groups of shinigami, responsible for their own lives. They defended the research division, while the most powerful shinigami went on suicide missions to fight for something. There was no one left out there to save, nothing to capture. The kamikaze missions were just attempts to kill as many hollows and arrancar as possible. It's not like the Hougyoku was infinite, right?

The battleground appeared to be a field of flowers. Everyone froze, unnerved by the new sensations. Mayuri's voice broke the silence, "Aizen Sosuke." The name was an epithet; spat out like some piece of rotten food.

A clapping sound raised everyone's attention, but Mayuri fiddled with his pockets before injecting himself with something. A man appeared in the field ahead of the group, focusing the attention on him. "I'm so disappointed in you Kurotsuchi-san," Aizen shook his head, "You could be great if you would simply follow the new God."

Kenpachi snorted, and Mayuri smiled, "You're not God, Sosuke." Mayuri raised his hands above his head, signaling his Buddha-headed zanpakuto to appear. It belched a cloud of poison into the flowers, "You're just an illusion."

Soi Fong's voice screamed out an eighties-level kido, but Aizen just smiled - he was already gone. Her smoking stump fell to her side as she screamed in rage and frustration. Suddenly slammed into the ground, she gurgled as Aizen's heel ground into her head, grinding her face into the soft dirt. Not enough force to kill her, but enough to stop her from moving freely. Everyone tried to move, but most found themselves frozen. Suddenly, Mayuri stumbled and fell, as though his body was trying to ignore his commands.

The Buddha was choking and crying, rubbing its eyes with little golden fists. "You can only do this much?" Aizen shook his head, a smug smile on his face, "I expected more from _you_, Kurotsuchi-taicho." Returning his eyes to the woman trapped beneath his foot, Aizen carefully folded his hair behind one ear to keep it from falling in his face. "I can give you so much Soi Fong. Yoruichi-sama will give you all of her love this time," his mouth fell into a pleading curve.

"Go to hell!" and a blast of dark energy were the only response.

Aizen's body again fell to pieces, and he rematerialized behind Kyoraku. Soi Fong felt her mouth shut and limbs press into the ground as Aizen restrained her using her own mind. "Ah, Kyoraku-sempai. The most beautiful girls –" A tanto thrust into his face cut him off. Nanao stood there, holding the blade.

"He does not need any of your lies, traitor!" she trembled as she said the words. Shunsui looked at her, his eyes seeing her as though it was the first time. Then he shook off his bound state and wrapped her in a hug. "Nanao-chan," the name was whispered, private. Aizen's eyes were predatory as he held the woman's eyes in a staring contest. She watched the "Lord of Hollows" from Shunsui's embrace, defiant even while she shook in terror.

"Zaraki-san. What is your hearts desire?" Aizen turned to face the final captain. Raising an arm, he allowed his zanpakuto to appear and capture the eyes of the "strongest". Kenpachi looked deep into the blade, and Aizen furrowed his brow in response. The two men were locked in an odd stalemate, neither one willing to concede. Aizen's face was a mess of confusion as he tried to make the demon submit before his will. Kenpachi's face was stony, seeing phantom visions of his life flowing before his eyes.

Finally, a moan from Soi Fong broke the tableau and brought them back to reality. Kenpachi gave a sick smile, the thoughtful expression on Aizen's face bringing him a little bit of happiness. "Didn't find what you were looking for?" he spoke quietly, the flowers lightly swaying in an illusionary breeze.

Aizen suddenly chuckled, "Oh, Zaraki-san. You really are the simple animal that Tousen thought you were," eyes glinting, he mocked the dead man, "Hmmm, I wonder if he realized that it was why you could beat him in the end." Aizen's smile was predatory, and he moved his bangs back in a reflexive action. "He sought justice, while you simply sought survival. He thought your battle was something special, but for you it was just one more fight to survive." The pretty-boy stood there for a minute, expectantly watching for a response. Then he tossed his head back gracefully, letting out a great laugh.

Kenpachi absently watched the flowers blooming in the field. The waving flowers gave the appearance of dancing fairies between the blossoms. A pink petal caught his eye, bringing up a memory of the daughter who died for a blind man's justice. A smile on his face, he whispered a word to the air. "Fight."

Mirages seemed to waver in the field of flowers, and Aizen shrugged, treading closer to one of them. Its indistinct shape was a phantasmal body of a person. Aizen narrowed his eyes when he saw a blade in the person's hand, and he raised he blade before it, attempting to bring it under his thrall. The body did nothing for a moment, simply floating before him. Then it swung its sword in a swift arc. Aizen brought his hand to his face, before dissolving into a rainbow mess of colors.

"I tire of this game," the voice came from everywhere, and it lacked any of the previous pleading tone. The sound of a snap echoed through the now empty field, and they all moved to wary positions. Kenpachi twitched, his sword arm moving a clean arc in front of his body. "Impressive, but the new game must begin," Aizen's voice came again, returning them to the softly falling snow of reality.

The group appeared to be surrounded, with Aizen's lieutenants surrounding them. In front of Kenpachi, one lay cut in half, whimpering in fear. Kenpachi growled, and a phantom axe appeared, crushing it into oblivion. Kenpachi simply shrugged his shoulders and cracked his neck. Everyone could now feel his energy rolling from him in waves. It was more animalistic, as though a beast was flexing in preparation for a kill.

Kenpachi blitzed forward, and a host of phantoms seemed to descend around him, tearing and killing their way through Aizen's lieutenants. The other shinigami moved forward, their blades flaring to life over the gently flowing snow. Soon, the snow ran red with the blood of shinigami and arrancar. The screams of the arrancar were only an appetizer to the vicious fury of the shinigami. Giggling, high-pitched squeals from Mayuri; grunts and curse words from Soi Fong; and the discreet battle cries from the lovers; they were all muffled in the early evening snowfall, as though nature itself cried little snowflake tears for their cause.

When the arrancar were finally dead, and only the shinigami stood, a clapping noise interrupted the heavy breathing of the shinigami. "I'd heard you finally got your sword workin', Kenpachi," a glint of light was the only warning before Kenpachi was impaled through his chest, "Too bad Shinso's still faster."

Kenpachi spat the name (and some blood) out, ripping the blade from his chest. "Gin."

"Bingo!" The grinning man walked into focus. He looked almost the same, but felt very different. His posture was hunched, and the smile was a little bit worn. "Aizen-taicho, tell him what he's won!" Gin waved an arm theatrically, introducing Aizen like some sadistic game-show host.

Aizen came into view, his slicked-back hair and fashionable coat contrasting with the broken rubble. Kenpachi's growl and subsequent lunge was halted when Aizen blasted a wave of kido to stop him. "Zaraki-taicho, I'm sure your friends would be displeased if you stop me from presenting you these special gifts," his wagging finger was less of an admonishment, and more of a preparation to strike.

Preparing himself carefully, Kenpachi waited for Aizen to finish his speech. Soi Fong paused her nearly inaudible chant, Shinso's blade inches from her throat. Nanao and Shunsui waited, blades ready to strike. Retracting Shinso, Gin kept his eyes open as he watched the two. Aizen flourished a hand, producing a broken stick and conducting it through the air. Kenpachi's expression displayed no recognition, so Aizen halted his mockery and tossed the stick lightly across the courtyard.

Kenpachi raised an eyebrow, letting the object clatter to the ground. As though he would simply catch something thrown to him by a hostile enemy. Aizen stood across from him, head shaking in disappointment. "Ah, you are too untrusting, Zaraki-taicho."

Gin's smile changed to a sick grin, "Little 'Shi-Ro-chan'," he broke the name up into mocking syllables, "won't be too happy with you if you don't catch the next prize."

Kenpachi's eyes widened. Aizen reached back, gripping something tightly before swinging his arm in a swift arc and releasing the payload. A small form flew towards his face, and Kenpachi caught it without thinking. The bundle in his arms trembled a little bit, and Kenpachi flinched at the smell of the contents. The bundle smelled like death. A shout made him flick his eyes up to the two traitors in time to duck a fatal stab to the head. Shinso retracted above his head, and Kenpachi watched the two captains carefully, and then jerked his head forward.

A phantom army surged forward, attempting to consume the two arrancar/shinigami. They negligently dodged, and Kenpachi readied himself to attack while dropping the bundle. Locking blades with Aizen, Kenpachi let the others deal with Gin and any lackeys. Grunting as he made eye contact with the traitor, Kenpachi allowed a phantom to stab Aizen while another came to decapitate him. Aizen flinched, his smile never leaving his face. Pressing his zanpakuto forward, Aizen matched Kenpachi's strength, before grinning as he dissolved into thin air.

Kenpachi frowned, looking down as he waited for feedback from the ghosts. His bankai was difficult for him to define (or accept), even after so many battles with it. It combined mental, physical, supernatural, and hallucinogenic effects to create deadly images that fought alongside him. The blade never changed, and Kenpachi disliked speaking about its own significance. A Zanpakuto is a reflection of its master, an extension of the wielder in more ways than one.

Nodding at the feedback, Kenpachi made a vicious slash to his left side. A giant, ethereal axe made another slash above the first, a giggling sound complimenting its movement. Aizen appeared from the air, a lock of hair falling to the ground. Watching the berserker for a second, Aizen calmly shivered into a wall of images and attacked. Kenpachi smiled, happy to resume the fight to the death.

Illusions cut Kenpachi. Phantoms cut down illusions. Wounds appeared on both sides, and Kenpachi allowed his reiatsu to fall into a musical pulse. The beat of his heart gave a harmonic rhythm to the fight. One beat, one cut. One silence, one movement. One breath, one step closer to the end.

His heart quickened, and Kenpachi allowed his mind to be consumed with his actions. His actions were practiced over centuries of killing. Memories of everything he had fought. The life he had fought for. The people he fought with. Everyone who died by his hand was present in every cut of his sword.

The phantoms began to take more of a solid form. They bled now. Faceless, soulless memories writhing deep within Kenpachi's mind, they fought with the desperation of every beggar without a loaf of bread. Fighting with the fury of every father protecting his child, like every commander trying to keep his or her soldiers from dying.

Or every friend, who buried the corpse of another.

Aizen released blasts of energy, attempting to destroy the phantoms. They ignored him, and kept coming. His step faltered for a moment, and Kenpachi cut him once. He flinched, and the images around him faltered. Suddenly, the courtyard fell into startling clarity. Aizen stood breathing heavily, his hands shaking and his eyes wide.

Kenpachi lunged forward, sword thrusting forward with the intent to end the fight. Penetrating Aizen's body, he roared in frustration when the body disintegrated again. The phantoms surrounding him faded away, and he was taken by surprise when he was pinned to a wall. Gin was leering behind him, keeping his other hand trained on the exhausted shinigami. Kenpachi gave a coughing laugh, blood seeping from his many wounds.

He spat out a question, "Neh, what did you see, Aizen Sosuke?"

Suddenly surrounded by a new full squad of arrancar, the group of shinigami waited for death. An axe swung into view near Kenpachi, a phantom reminder of his zanpakuto. Nanao was crouched on the ground, chanting something from her book while Shunsui stood over her in a threatening posture. Soi Fong chuckled as she bled from numerous wounds, bending her knees in preparation for a last stand. Waving her stump from side to side, flecks of blood flew from her lips, spraying the ground with her harsh breaths. Mayuri's body had disappeared into nothing but trails of slime as he went to regenerate.

Aizen raised a hand, stopping the army from attacking. He watched Kenpachi, still coughing out blood onto the wall. Aizen schooled his expression into one of mild curiosity, but a glittering fear remained behind his eyes. Glancing at Gin, he signaled for the berserker to be released. Kenpachi's body fell to the ground unceremoniously, the pooled blood splashing up in a macabre squelching sound.

"Zaraki Kenpachi," the name rolled from Aizen's lips like a delicacy. "Are you still _the _'Kenpachi'? Or are you simply the only piece of scum to survive for so long in a hostile environment?" Aizen's eyes burned with restrained fire as he dissected the half-dead man before him. "For that matter, are you still a _shinigami_ anymore?"

Soi Fong growled at the statement, "More of a shinigami then you ever were! More of a _man_ than you'll ever _be_."

"My dear captain," Aizen snapped his eyes over to her form, "Are any of you much of shinigami anymore? When was the last time you sent a soul anywhere? Or the last time any of you used your zanpakuto for anything but killing?" Standing beside Aizen, Gin let out his own chuckle at the speech.

"Do you really think the Hougyoku has left you all _uncontaminated_? You have all been in close proximity to certain individuals who were _changed_ on a base level by it. You could almost be arrancar yourselves now," Aizen's voice had a certain cloying tone to it, dripping with undisguised sincerity, "Why, Zaraki-san never had a Shikai to speak of before the unfortunate events of the last few years. The things I've heard about the rest of the shinigami are nothing short of astounding. It appears I was correct in the long-term exposure plan being the most effective means of…" Aizen paused for a moment, eliciting a growl from Soi Fong, "_Evolving_ a shinigami into something else."

"You are wrong, Aizen Sosuke," the formal tones of Nanao broke the tableau.

Turning his eye to the small woman, he watched her glowing hands as she completed her spell. Slamming them into the ground, light spread out from beneath her to cover all of the other shinigami present. Flicking her eyes over the ground, light seemed to surround the bundle of rags and the broken piece of wood as well.

"We may not be the same as we were before, but we are _nothing_ like you." The conviction in her voice was penetrating, and the light started to force the arrancar out of her circle. Aizen and Gin flinched at the pressure, but stood their ground.

"All you ever told us were lies. All you ever gave us was contempt. And all you ever wanted was to make us weaker." The shining light grew stronger, and Gin was forced back.

"We fight to survive now, and that the best thing any of us can do. None of us are very innocent anymore. None of us are weak anymore." Closing his eyes, Aizen took a step outside of the light, even as it blistered his face.

"Someday, one of us will kill you," she smiled with sad eyes, "And we will be free."

The blades of Shinso pierced through the light and ripped through her chest, but Nanao just smiled and released the spell.

She died in Shunsui's arms, heart left behind at the scene of the battle.

_The end results of the skirmish were less than pretty. The body thrown at Kenpachi was the quadriplegic corpse of Hinamori Momo, captured when the Fourth Division Hospital had fallen. Hitsugaya had been quiet for the previous years, but after the appearance of her corpse he became nearly mute and a bloodthirsty fanatic when faced with hollows._

_The stick was discovered to be the remains of Yamamoto's zanpakuto. The oddest thing is that a shinigami's zanpakuto was supposed to disappear when they die, which meant that the Captain-Commander was still alive somewhere, presumably captured. The First Division Captain was the one with the necessary information, so why hadn't Aizen finished the game? Yamamoto was tough though, so perhaps he simply lived a life of eternal torture._

_Nanao Ise was dead. It was no secret that Shunsui loved her. She was his world. Only Ukitake and Unohana could remember the last woman that had held so much of his heart. Shunsui had taken over a century to recover from her death, and Nanao had been the only thing that truly opened his heart again. He was lost again, with nothing but a desire for death to guide him._

_Kenpachi survived. There was little else he could do._

~OOOOOOO~

Kenpachi still heard them, at the edges of his sleep. If it wasn't Matsumoto descending into screams or laughter, it was Nemu crying. The captains would just talk – for hours. About how to design the spell-circle, or what chants to use. Sometimes they even argued about the correct method of carrying him to the circle. This time, they were talking about the risk factors and how to set things up. The same issues they had been debating for a while now. With his eyes closed, a bit of the conversation caught his attention.

"He will never accept a sacrifice!" Retsu's voice rang through the cavern, and some of them turned their head toward the three bickering captains. She glanced over at them, quietly apologizing about the noise. She rubbed her face with her hands. Soi Fong whispered something to her fiercely, giving a little punch to the older woman. Unohana ignored the hit, mumbling a response to the question.

Mayuri noticed Kenpachi's head move, so he quickly shifted his hand behind his back, removing a syringe from the inside of his coat and prepping it quickly. Standing in such a fashion to hide his hand from view, Mayuri stalked the subject of concern.

"Sacrifices?" Kenpachi croaked out, his brow pinching into a strange expression.

"Ah, it's nothing, just a sacrifice of power in exchange for the whole thing," Mayuri tried to wave off any concerns as he approached the larger man.

Carefully timing the movement, Kenpachi caught the man's descending pale hand. They made eye contact, but Mayuri twitched his eyes away first. "Kenpachi… It's not like we're going to exist anymore," Kenpachi's stony expression was the only response. He sighed as he absently attempted to slip his hand away, "Will you walk with me then?"

Groggily rising to his feet, but still holding the hand with the syringe in a tight grip, Kenpachi dragged the albino into the tunnel. Reaching an acceptable distance, Kenpachi released the man. Turning to face a wall a short distance away, he let his hardened senses and reflexes keep track of the scientist. Time-travel was a strange idea, something that was better discussed over several bottles of sake and whatever drinking game they were playing at the given moment. The actual mechanics seemed to be ridiculously complex, or they were at least difficult enough to confuse Mayuri and Soi Fong. Arguably the best minds remaining as shinigami, but that was a given under the circumstances.

"If you can use sacrifices… then why me?" Kenpachi turned his body to the scientist, "I could be a battery for this and we could send any of you back."

Mayuri rubbed his face, reddening his skin with a little bit of an artificial blush. "Look… It's complicated."

"Explain, in short answer form."

Mayuri licked his lips nervously, "This doesn't just open a portal in time, it simply gives you the _opportunity_ to open a portal like that."

Kenpachi frowned, "If I can't make the damn portal here, than what makes you think I'll be able to do it later."

"You don't have to make a second portal, you just have to get through the first one and then do something and it will reopen, simply at a different point in time," Mayuri shrugged, "There really weren't any candidates left who might be able to pass the test in between."

"Test?"

"You're supposed to survive a rather… difficult test," Mayuri stated, rolling his head to look at Kenpachi.

"Why would _I_ be the best person for this test? Why not Soi Fong, or Retsu, or _you_ –"

Mayuri raised a hand, halting the tirade before it got rolling. "The notes about the test mentioned that the person must be honorable. This removes me from the pool," Mayuri chuckled a little bit, "They must be very powerful, so not anyone below captain-level reiatsu. They must fight for themselves. That eliminates everyone except for you and Unohana-taicho."

He bit his lip, not wanting to continue the explanation. Kenpachi gave him a flat look. "Finally, the person was suggested to be someone who will keep fighting until the end," Kenpachi frowned at him, waiting for the kicker, "Retsu has been captain of the Fourth Division for as long as I've been alive. She has only in recent years really started to be active in combat. While she could probably attempt it – after we managed to teach you how to perform the necessary Kido – it would be a waste."

Kenpachi gave him a dumbfounded look. Mayuri shrugged, "It's true. You have been fighting for the longest here. Only Soi Fong and Toshiro can keep up with you after an hour purely on their own strength. Renji knows your drills, but he can't keep your speed while doing it," Mayuri made a shooing motion, dismissing the others, "Retsu has the second highest chance, but yours is substantially better. Only Sajin or the old man would have a chance like yours."

"You're also the right age. We needed someone of at least two hundred years, simply to get over the predicted time spent recovering your power," Mayuri flicked his head back towards the room, "There aren't very many of us left who were both anonymous and existent during that time period."

Throughout his speech, Mayuri had moved closer to the scarred man. Contrasting the pale, unblemished skin versus the obviously damaged flesh of the last man to claim the name "Kenpachi", showed the forces that he had resisted over so many years. Mayuri ran a long finger across his chest, feeling the ripples of muscle and the other tissue below the masses of scar tissue.

"You would have been the perfect test subject. Resilient, combative, dangerous, and yet intelligent, strategic, and a tactical genius," he licked his lips at the prospect, making his red lips glisten in the dim lighting left in the sewers, "Instead, you are the only one who can do something to prevent the massacre and destruction of Soul Society." Mayuri stepped back, raising yellow eyes back up to his colleague's face. "I would sacrifice the world for the chance to return people to life," Mayuri shrugged in a dismissing fashion, "I have even tried in the past." Then he glared at Kenpachi with a crazed fury in his eyes, "Will you really spit on this final gambit? Your last chance to see their precious faces outside of dreams and the madness consuming all of us."

Shocked by such vehemence, Kenpachi stood silent, contemplating the man in front of him. Mayuri watched him for a moment, searching his eyes for something that he had rarely asked for – consent. Kenpachi turned his eyes away into the darkness, accepting of his fate. His hand was loosened and the syringe in it taken. He did nothing when he was struck with the syringe, accepting the darkness that would consume the world and return him to dreams. A tearful, muffled whisper left him to return to the dreams and nightmares.

"Save her Kenpachi. Save me."

~OOOOOOO~

"Tousen!"

Kenpachi opened his eyes, feeling the spit and blood coursing down his face. He absently wiped his face with the back of one hand, uncomfortable with the events transpiring in front of him. Sajin Komamura kneels before the broken body of Kaname Tousen as he screams at the body of the traitor captain. Komamura was dying, that much was known. The giant fox creature had lived for centuries with very few friends, and the betrayal had created bitter confusion and shame within the captain. The barely living fox reached his giant hand down to shake the body beneath him.

"Are you happy now? Has justice been served?"

Kenpachi turned away, vindicated in his revenge. Ikkaku walked with him a short ways as they ignored the tormented ramblings of the dying captain. The sky is red, a deep purpling magenta which is casting an odd light on the pools surround them. It could almost be water, but they know its blood. Their blood, Tousen's blood, and the blood of the shinigami who died here, it all looks the same gathered in deep lagoons, hiding reefs made up of the wreckage of Seireitei.

A crushing sound gave a bittersweet finale to the introspective thoughts, and Ikkaku turned his head to look back at the giant fox creature. A look of surprise, and he shoved Kenpachi to the side, even as a wall of blackness rose to cover them.

The field extends to destroy the senses of all those left on the battlefield. Watching from the outside, it seems as though the strange zone is simply a hole in space. Minutes pass, and everything looks the same. Arrancar begin to cluster outside of it, with hollows joining them, slavering in anticipation of the coming meal. Nothing goes in or comes out; senses fail to discern the events inside. Life itself ceases to be recognizable on the outside.

Darkness.

It imploded on itself, and the people began to take shape inside. Ikkaku's chest gushed out blood, a sword dissolving out of his back. Several slashes on his chest also bled profusely, and he seems to be the only one with fresh injuries. Nearer to Komamura's body, Tousen's legs crumple to the ground, even as his upper body flailed against Komamura's corpse. Kenpachi stalked forward, sword held tightly as he prepared to stab through the blind man's face. A strange mist follows him, and forms in it weave around him.

Kenpachi stabbed once. Ripped through a dead eye. Again. Impaled the other eye. He flicks the eye off his sword with a hand, then swept the head from the corpse in a slash. "Go find your blind justice in hell!"

Ikkaku gurgled something, and Kenpachi raised his face to the man. He flash-stepped over to him, eyeing the arrancar surrounding them.

"Let. Me. Fight."

The voice stopped him, and Kenpachi looked down at Ikkaku, who was crouched to the ground, picking up the largest piece of his bankai. Waving at Kenpachi, Ikkaku lurched to his feet, before dashing into the arrancar. The battle cry is muffled by spitting blood, but the glow emitting from his eyes is visible from behind him. Kenpachi followed in his wake, cutting down those who dodged the huge monk's-spade. Hesitating for a second, Kenpachi remembered the rules of his division, 'Do not interfere in the fights of others.'

Turning, Kenpachi flash-stepped away as Ikkaku dove headlong into the battle, and neither of them looked back. There were only the masks to cut a path through. In another world, that could have been him. They were alike in so many ways, and they had become very good friends over the years. They both understood the rules of the game they played though. Every warrior should have the ability to choose where he/she/it dies. And Kenpachi would damn himself if he took that away from the closest thing to a younger brother he ever had.

Madarame Ikkaku was dead. Yumichika had better have found something to drink on his way back, because there were a lot of good memories with that crazy bald man.

_The battle on the hill was a last stand for Komamura. He knew it was a meaningless suicide; no one would ever have a reason to come through the portal or use the Soukyoku. There were no prisoners to guard. But it was the one place that Tousen would always know to find him. Looking down on the burning Seireitei, he could watch as the arrancar tore down shinigami civilization and brought up theirs. This was no invasion. It was extermination._

_Aizen could go on forever about taking the place of the "King of Soul Society", but no one really knew what that meant. Only Yamamoto truly knew anything about it, and the old man never spoke of it. Aizen seemed to just be systematically destroying the shinigami to take over Soul Society. Research into the subject was a restricted subject, under pain of exile or death. Mayuri was never interested in it, and Urahara was long dead._

_Soul Society existed as a place for spirits resting between incarnations, but the hollows liked to consume and destroy the spirits, upsetting the balance. So the shinigami were formed to confront the hollows, eventually forcing them almost entirely out of Soul Society and back into Hueco Mundo. The balance of the three worlds meant that any overlap was negligible. Upsetting these balances could mean any number of things would occur. Somehow, a force needed to exist to counteract the extreme hunger of the hollows – otherwise they would overrun everything and everyone._

_Was Aizen's goal simply to replace the Seireitei with his own order?_

~OOOOOOO~

Kenpachi felt something press into his side sharply. "Wake up, Zaraki," a voice growled out, before trailing off, "Useless old man…"

Opening his eyes, Kenpachi slowly watched the world come into focus. The sharp pokes were jabbing him harder, but the pain was dulled through a haze of drugs and the sheer lack of feeling in his body. Blinking the sleep from his eyes, Kenpachi reached out to grab the blade poking him in ribs. "Alright, I'm awake," he grunted.

At his side, Hisagi snarled in irritation, stirring the bowl of fungus soup. "Damnit…" Shuuhei twitched his head, face grimacing beneath his mask. The bone made a shifting noise, a sort of light scraping sound from the contact with the younger man's hair. He watched the floor, stirring slower and slower until the soup was only lightly steaming.

Kenpachi watched the man carefully. They had never gotten along. From the first time they met, when Shuuhei joined the Gotei 13, there was no love lost between them. Kenpachi had no reason to notice the young prodigy, since the Eleventh was the closest thing to a "trash division". Hisagi had simply avoided the man by gaining easy entry into different squads with different priorities, and then his service under two captains who had never approved of the "demon". When the tattooed man finally became a vice-captain, his opinion of the Eleventh Division captain fell even further, since he was now responsible for much of the paperwork created by any "training incidents" – better known to the other divisions as "drunken brawling.

Even the time spent fighting together had never forged the closeness that some of the others shared. Kira was never close to Zaraki either, but Kira was never confrontational about it. Hisagi had been known to question orders from the Captain, who was mostly trusted as the leader in the absence of Yamamoto. Near the end, Komamura had become less hostile, but Hisagi would never quite forgive the berserker who, in Hisagi's eyes, killed both of his captains.

"Shuuhei…" Kenpachi looked away, "what do you think about it?" Kenpachi didn't have to point out what "it" was. "It" was hanging over everyone's head. The slumped shoulders of the nearly broken captain were a dead giveaway. He was worried. Worried that he was making a mistake, worried that they would rather die with him. Zaraki Kenpachi had never lost a fight (other than Ichigo) as a captain, but he'll be damned if he runs away without everyone's approval.

Shuuhei carefully drew out a ladleful of the soup. The broth was as thick as they could get it with their resources, and it was nutritious, but Shuuhei would be damned if _he_ wanted to eat the slop. Holding the ladle up and pouring into the reclining captain, he considered the issue. "I don't know Zaraki." The captain drank from the ladle that was tilted up to his mouth, watching the bone-mask for any expressions, as though they would show through the whitish patchwork quilt of facial bones. "If it works, what I think won't matter anyway," Shuuhei tried to dismiss the issue, filling another ladleful and raising it to the scarred face in front of him.

"It does," the voice was firm, hard in its conviction. "I will remember, even if you aren't there to," an arm reached out, pulling the two-thirds full ladle to his mouth. As he drinks, Kenpachi maintains eye contact, trying to communicate something with his eyes.

"I think…" Shuuhei grimaced, "You will succeed. I trust you to succeed." Hisagi looked at the wall, his eyes trying to see a different future. "There are many people you could help change."

Kenpachi kept his face expressionless, expecting the man to speak on behalf of his former captains.

"Komamura deserved better, for many years. Hitsugaya-taicho could certainly use a kick in the ass as a child," Kenpachi snorted, and the 'Ice Prince' raised an eyebrow, "I think you could teach all of the shinigami to fight better. We shouldn't be fresh meat ready for the slaughter when we meet our first hollow." Shuuhei seemed lost in the past, "You could save a lot of lives lost to Aizen's little games."

Furrowing his brow, Kenpachi started to think about suspicious incidents he remembered.

"Taicho…" Shuuhei trailed off, a tear falling to the ground as he started to break down. "Zaraki-taicho, I want you to kill Tousen-taicho… if he's the same."

Unohana snapped her head up, shocked at the implication. Soi Fong turned a stony eye over to the two men, watching as they sat in silence. The others in the room watched the floor or slept, leaving them uninterrupted. "Kill him. And never let any of them do what they've done to any of us," Shuuhei gestured wildly, to the various people spread around the room.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, and Zaraki quietly finished the soup. Mayuri rose to his feet, subdued from the conversation. Prepping the needle as he approached Kenpachi, Mayuri startled Shuuhei into knocking over the pot. As it clattered to the floor, the people in the room tensed painfully, all of their reflexes honed by years of paranoia. Swords half-drawn, spells cut off; they calmed their strained nerves, relaxing to a comfortable level.

As he stared up at the face of the pale man, Shuuhei suddenly started chuckling. Of course, that set Matsumoto off, and the two shinigami rolled around the floor, laughing hysterically. Nemu woke up and gurgled thoughtfully at the scene, as Hanataro fretted around her. Kira let out a cough-giggle combination, swallowing a little blood, but the smile on his face betrayed his happiness at the scene. Unohana smiled softly, and Soi Fong just sniffed – turning back to her papers with a smile on his face

One eyebrow raised, Kenpachi asked the question of the day, "You okay, Hisagi-san?"

The query came as Hisagi was calming down, and he started to try and say something, "You should also –" he broke out laughing again, interrupting the reply. Kenpachi eyed Mayuri speculatively, wondering if the researcher was wearing some sort of perfume. Kenpachi's tired expression remained unchanged as Mayuri was similarly confused. Shrugging and checking the needle, Mayuri prepared to inject it.

"Make sure that Kurotsuchi-taicho doesn't look like a clown next time!"

Making a disgusted sound, Mayuri jabbed the needle into Kenpachi with painful force. Kenpachi still fell asleep in blissful laughter.

~OOOOOOO~

"Good morning, Zaraki-taicho."

Unohana's voice penetrated through the haze of sleep. Where was he? What happened? There was darkness, then what?

His lips cracking open, his voice tried to rasp from his dry throat.

"Ah, you need water. It's to be expected after all the screaming you did."

Unohana's voice again, but why couldn't he open his eyes? The cool water down his throat made him feel substantially better. Attempting to open his eyes again, he was met with a little success as one eye crack open, only to be shut as it was painfully filled by some liquid.

"Oh, I suppose I should clean you up a little bit. It was difficult enough to find you, and healing your wounds took an hour or two."

Her voice sounded absentminded or distracted for some reason. Kenpachi heard a door slide open and footsteps measured a quick pace. Cataloguing what he knew, he was lying on a hard surface. Faint noises could be heard in the distance. Hollows? The closing sound of footsteps signaled Unohana's return. A wet cloth wiped over his face, and he can feel it rubbing along his eyes. Sword was… a few feet away. How does he know that?

"What happened?" Kenpachi croaked out. "I remember darkness…then nothing."

Unohana sighed, and Kenpachi opened his eyes to be greeted by her blood-coated body. Her coat was missing, her hair falling behind her in bloody clumps of ponytail. In fact, there was blood staining many of the things in the room. Leaning up, Kenpachi groaned as the full extent of his injuries hit him. "Where are we?" Kenpachi's voice got stronger.

"A shed in the courtyard. Tousen escaped, but you managed to kill a large percentage of the assaulting forces." The dead tone of her voice was tired and in pain. Kenpachi looked into her eyes, and saw that she was avoiding his. He reached a hand up to touch her face, only to have her move away from his touch. "The escape route to the sewers should still be open for the next hour if you want to leave."

"Want to leave?" Kenpachi was confused, "Why aren't we getting out together, and where is everyone else?"

"Gone," she said quietly.

"Gone?" he echoed. "They already escaped then?"

Her hands shook as she brought the wet cloth to her face. She appears to ignore the question, wiping her face off a little bit.

"Retsu!" The shout made his lungs ache a little bit, and sitting up didn't help anything.

She dropped the cloth at the sharp sound. "Ah, I'll have to go clean it off."

Kenpachi watched as the senior captain absently walked back out to the courtyard. "What the hell happened here?" Levering himself up from the floor carefully, he tested his limbs before making his way to the door. Slumping forward with his side on the door, he tried to figure out what happened here.

The answer was blood. The courtyard was a butcher's shop. Kenpachi had been around for a long time, but it was rare that such a wholesale slaughter was simply left unchecked. Bodies were sunk into the ground, pools of blood softening the soil into mud; limbs lie below streaks of blood on walls; trees serve as a twisted holiday reminder, guts falling from them like ornaments. In the middle of it, Unohana squats near a small pond and wrings out a rag. The fish in the pond float at the surface in pieces, collateral damage from the battle. Once-clear water is now a dyed pool of watered down tears and blood. Pieces of a bone mask lie on the surface, a reminder that the fight was only a short time ago – otherwise the hollow would have completely dissolved.

Stressing her hands in painful designs, Unohana stared out into the pool. Her eyes flitted back and forth from the edges, following phantom fish, leaping from the depths in clean arcs. Kenpachi stepped out from the shed, gingerly putting his weight on each lacerated limb. He groaned as he made his way across the courtyard, making enough noise so that she knew he was coming. The splashes from the blood and the almost-drag of his feet made his voice unnecessary.

"Dead." Her voice was a whisper on the wind. The sounds of her cracking fingers were bigger than her voice. Kenpachi heard her anyways, trained from centuries of listening to his 'daughter' sleep. "All dead." The voice shook now, afraid to confirm the truth of her statement. She clutched her hands to her body, bruising her sides lightly.

"Tousen came?" Kenpachi's mind tried to pinpoint the precise events of the battle.

She nodded.

"He did all of this?"

"No."

"Who did it then?"

She shivered at her own response. "His army."

Shocked by the situation, Kenpachi stood mute for a minute. Soaking in the environment, he tried to bring back his lost memories. Furrowing his brow in frustration, he forced his mind through the last events he remembers. Hanataro flying into him, screaming for help the whole time. The halls flying past as he ran to fight… darkness…_Tousen_.

Kenpachi fell to his knees, his mind finally gleaning the last event he remembered. Her face. That name she had never called him before. Then pain. Rage. Hate. Consuming him in its tempting grasp. Retsu didn't look at him, but she knew that he remembered. The sound of him collapsing to the ground, brought down by the true beast that lived inside of him. She brought her hands up around her knees, curling into a ball like she did so many centuries ago.

"You killed them. Every single one you could reach you killed. The others escaped, and I stayed behind."

Fists clenched, bent over the ground, Kenpachi let his tears fall. Knees digging into the ground, he ignored the pain from his recently bound wounds. The hole in his heart was causing him enough pain to be ignorant of everything else.

Retsu mostly ignored him, humming softly to herself as she rocked back and forth, wandering through her own memories. She has been to similar places before. Watching her division die for centuries had not prepared her for this though. The massacre that took place here was different from any of her previous experiences.

_The first time she lost a comrade, her captain was there to tell her that time would heal the wound. It wasn't true, all that happened was she pushed it back in her mind as the years went by. A century later, she was the one to bury her captain, telling the members of what was now her division that they would become healers and save everyone. She didn't finish the statement - they would only save everyone they could. That no one would save them. Over the centuries she grew accustomed to her somewhat naïve division. Their patrol schedule was irregular, and mostly devoted to sanitation or ceremony. _

_Retsu was there when they lost someone. To explain that it would hurt a little less in a year or so. She watched people in her division either grow soft or look for a new division. Then she watched many of them die in stupid accidents, or die in fights that they might have won, if they simply practiced their combat skills. In all that time, she had buried many vice-captains, of many different varieties. Some were prodigies, some were appointed to her, and most of them had much better organizational skills than combat skills._

Isane had been of the last variety. Yamamoto had ordered her to get a new vice-captain, after spending nearly fifty years without one. She had first simply moved up her third seat, but eventually gave the position to a young woman who had the heart and desire to heal. In many ways, Retsu saw herself in Isane. Shy, young, and lonely. Both women became more beautiful with age.

_The parallels stopped there. Kotetsu Isane mourned a lost sister, her only memory from life - while Unohana Retsu mourned her children, never to be born. Isane eventually found her sister, a fairytale ending for a beautiful princess. Retsu was told she could never have children, due to scarring left over from her brutal death. There was never any resentment for her vice-captain, who might have eventually found her fairytale prince – or at least a nice enough man. Unohana would simply continue to do her job, until she was as old and wrinkled as Yamamoto. She was already considered the oldest captain after Yamamoto and his two trainees, Kyoraku Shunsui and Ukitake Juushiro. _

_It was easy to keep living, when she only lived to keep living. Life for life's sake. Unohana Retsu refined many of her skills for centuries, never knowing that a day would come that she would fight again on the front lines. Her division was easy pickings for the arrancar and hollows; most of them had only ever seen a hollow during their days at the academy. Many of her children had become complacent and weak in their cushy jobs. Always expecting someone else to block the swords of the enemy for him or her. _

_She warned everyone who entered her division of the dangers inherent in their jobs; combat healing was no game at the park. Few of them really lived long enough to understand that. Eventually, after watching comrades die in the line of duty, the older members of the Fourth Division started to work on their combat training. They became average fighters, if nothing else. _

_Average was not quite enough, it would take different breeds of fighters to truly survive in the hell that Aizen wrought upon them. _

_Now Isane was dead. Kiyone would probably be dead soon too. Who was left alive to care that Unohana Retsu did anything? Aizen would only feed her lies, Tousen ignored her in the first place, and Gin was irritating to everyone. Everyone else was dying. Retsu would die alone and childless, just as she did before._

"Are you escaping?" her voice broke the silence again.

Kenpachi had fallen to the ground, and now watched the sky. "Huh?"

"It has been several hours, the enemy should have regrouped by now." The dead tone of her voice was a radical contrast to its regular soothing sound. "If you wish to escape, you should do so soon."

"Hai." Kenpachi just grunted in response, levering his body up from the ground. The walk back to the shed made Kenpachi notice that the shed was once a more ceremonial pavilion. Now, with the doors closed and the rooftop stained with blood, it looks more like a slaughterhouse. Kenpachi can feel the steadiness in his legs, consciousness lending him strength. The pain still lingered, but he's not one to be kept down by a little pain – or even a lot of it.

Inside the small shelter, Kenpachi walked to the corner to grasp his sword. As he looked down at the blade, the odd call coming from it changed to a buzzing, chattering sound. Confused, he moved his hand closer to the hilt. The static sound became a wash of white noise, ripping and tearing at his ears. He pulled his hand away sharply, reducing the sound to a manageable level.

"What the hell was that?"

Kenpachi inspected the blade. It was his, he could feel that in his gut, but something changed when he blacked out. The sword itself looked like it always did. Long hilt, wrapped for a two-handed grip; a sharply chipped blade; the guard looked slightly different under his eyes. It was a strange design before, a star-like pattern of sharp projections all along it. Now the guard looked sharper, like it would cut him with a touch. Flicking his eyes to his right hand, he sees a bandage around his palm and fingers; it followed the pattern from his grip of the sword.

Snarling, he reached his hand forward in annoyance. When his hand clenched around the hilt, a familiar voice giggled in his ear and he snapped his head to the side. "Yachiru!" He saw nothing there. The noise was unmistakable. It was tattooed into his memories after so many years. Twisting his head back and forth painfully, Kenpachi searched for the source of the voice. A thought made him halt, and he swiftly turned and took a single flash-step out to Retsu.

Looking into her dead eyes, Kenpachi holds on to one last hope. Like a dying man in a desert, Kenpachi's heart reaches out for a shimmering mirage. "Is she…?"

"Dead. Yachiru's dead, Zaraki-taicho." Retsu's voice was chilled with finality.

A whiny voice came from over his shoulder, but he couldn't make out the words. Looking off to the side, Kenpachi was once again greeted with blank space. He darted his eyes from corner to corner, looking for the source of the voice. A different voice came from above him, snarling with pain and anger. A cacophony of voices started to scream at him, their words garbled and impossible to discern.

Kenpachi clutched his fists to his ears, his thrashing shoulders reopening his healing wounds. Violently twisting his body, Kenpachi fell to his knees. The echoing chorus made him moan in pain, his ears pulsing like they are going to bleed. A touch on his arm made him lash out. _Slice_. The sound of the blade whistling through the air silenced the voices. Breathing hard, he started rising to his feet – only to be tripped up when the chattering returns. He managed to win the battle to gain his ground, but the darting eyes betray his near-freak-out state.

"What do you want?" Kenpachi screamed.

Whipping his sword from side to side, Kenpachi struggled to find the chattering chorus that seemed to be shadowing him. The voices fade in and out with every swing. Wails and screams rage through his ears like a choir of the damned. A few of the voices were familiar, but many of them are so garbled it is impossible to tell. Roaring, Kenpachi dropped his sword in a fit and grasped his head.

Only to have the voices disappear.

"Zaraki-taicho," Retsu's voice was tired. "I want to live out my last few hours in peace." She moved her eyes to watch him for a moment. "Could you give me that dignity?"

Kenpachi looked Retsu straight in the eyes. Despair gleamed back at him, teeth glinting in the afternoon sun. That lost look in her eyes, it was one he hadn't seen in many years. "Che! What are you talking like that for?" It was the look of someone already dead. "We're still alive. Let's get out of here already." The corpses, looking back at him with glazed eyes as he crouched in a sun-drenched clearing. He opened his mouth again, but no words of urging came to mind.

She simply looked up at him, her posture resigned to her fate. Shoulders slumped and tired, she was accepting of her doom. Kenpachi clicked his mouth shut in annoyance. Then something flickered in her eyes, and she looked off to the side at something else. "It appears that my end is here sooner then I expected." The sound of a hollow rummaging came from inside the hospital.

Kenpachi turned his body, annoyed at her pronouncement. Then his senses picked up on more hollows investigating. A scouting party was wandering the ruins. "Damnit, Retsu. We can handle them." Reaching down to his zanpakuto, Kenpachi froze when he looked at it. The voices only came when the sword was in his hand. Could he fight with the voices messing around in his head? Grinding his teeth in irritation, Kenpachi flicked his eyes around the visible courtyard. He wondered at the number of hollows that would comfortably fight in the area – fifteen, possibly twenty – but was unable to distract himself from the pressing concern of what would happen in the coming fight. For a long moment, Kenpachi caught Retsu's eyes in his own. She looked alone. But she wasn't alone, not now.

A hollow poked its skull into the courtyard, and Kenpachi made a decision. A scowl on his face, he snatched up his sword with one hand and captured her arm in the other. Ignoring the whispering voices, Kenpachi focused on pulling Retsu to her feet. A shout from the hollow brought crashing noises from several places around the courtyard, and the two captains were suddenly faced with a small team of hollows. Kenpachi shook his head to clear the voices, and then twisted his lips into a snarl when he realized they were his imagination. His wounds bled a little bit, the bloodstains from them sprinkled on the wrapped bandaging.

Clenching his hand on Retsu's shoulder, he shook her a little bit, "Get your sword and we'll fight our way out." She stayed motionless, just waiting for death. Death wasn't waiting for them though, and a hollow lunged forward with a vicious expression. Kenpachi growled as he pulled the woman closer to him and blocked a claw strike with his blade. Grunting as he blasted the hollow back with a hard push, Kenpachi suddenly _felt_ a voice in his mind-

**Left!**

-and moved forward, dodging a hollow coming from behind him. Pivoting, Kenpachi tagged the hollow with the tip of his sword, almost removing a limb. Turning his body a little, Kenpachi tried to get most of the hollows into his sight range. The body in his arms was a limp weight. He wanted to yell and scream at her, but he knew it would be useless if she didn't want to live.

Laughing, the hollows made snide comments about the woman in his arms. Kenpachi ignored them, whispering words to Retsu, "Come on, Unohana-taicho. You always go on and on about keeping people alive," he gave a little snort, "Why can't you keep yourself alive for once?"

She wondered at the audacity of his statement, "What would you know about fighting for life, Zaraki-taicho?" Even held in a protective grip, depending on him to defend her, she still couldn't trust him completely. She wrapped her hands around him, pulling her smaller body in closer. His heartbeat was strong, preparing for hard work that he was undoubtedly experienced in.

Kenpachi grimaced, the combination of the woman he was protecting and the disturbing voices from his sword making the battle that much more interesting. Another hollow lunged at him, this time he chose to dash back at it. Jumping was out of the question, so he flicked an incoming claw to the side and impaled the hollow with a vicious crouching thrust. Ripping his blade up as he straightened, Kenpachi tore through the mask like paper. It fell to the ground, splattering the stained ground with blood and limbs. The body dissipated, but the blood remained. Kenpachi grinned with teeth and rage in his eyes, a lion in center of his arena, waiting for a new challenger to appear.

The hollows danced nervously around the edges, and one disappeared back into the building, going for help. Kenpachi crouched low, Retsu clasping her hands below his arms and behind his back. Twisting his head, his challenging expression gains a pair of thoughtful eyes. "I am_Kenpachi_. You don't get to keep that name without fighting for your own life a few times," his flippant remark made her open her eyes and watch as he dispatched another hollow with more swift, brutal attacks. His voice was soft for the next statement, the words so quiet that he wasn't sure he had spoken aloud, "But even years before that, I fought to stay alive every day."

This time, two hollows performed a pincer attack. One shot a burst of bone flechettes at Kenpachi's head, while the other came in low, teeth snapping at his legs with massive jaws. Holding Retsu carefully, Kenpachi fell backwards under the shots. He kicked the incoming hollow up into them, watching as it was propelled through the air and crashed into the wall behind him by friendly fire. The telltale sound of more flechettes came, and Kenpachi rolled to the side carefully. Regaining his feet before the next shot, Kenpachi winced when a particularly loud scream penetrated his mind. Muttering, he whipped his sword out at the flechettes, intending to stop them with pure reiatsu. The piercing rounds flashed out in all directions, encountering some shield along the way. Kenpachi frowned for a second, and then shook off the discrepancy with his blade.

"Fight, Retsu."

Releasing the woman, he stood silently for a second, his intuition telling him that more enemies were coming. "Fight for yourself, damn you. Fight for Isane. What would your division think if they could see their captain now?" Kenpachi smiled as she flinched, "They would say 'Unohana-taicho, fight!'" Her face was ashen and guilty. "Look around you, at all the people that died so that you might live. And then tell them that you're throwing away their gift." Kenpachi's maniacal grin held no comfort for her. "Fight, Retsu. Fight, Fourth Division Captain. Pick up your sword and **fight**, woman!" At this point, Kenpachi held his sword pointed at her, resting on her lip. Holding her eyes, Kenpachi felt a word throbbing through his being, trying to escape.

Mumbling, he trailed off, "fight, fight, fight…" He looked distracted; a voice was trying to tell him something. His eyes going far away, Kenpachi whispered two words. "Fight. _Ken_."

Unohana screamed, and jerked away from the sword at some invisible sight. Her eyes were wide, like she had seen a ghost. As she looked back with a haunted expression, Kenpachi found his own eyes drawn to distortions in the air. Ghosts flickered around him, watching him with a range of faces. He saw hollows and arrancar, some he remembered killing. He saw faces of shinigami, some smiling and others sullen. When he saw the face of Yachiru, dragging Aramaki around, Kenpachi's eyes widened in shock.

"What is this?"

_Unohana Retsu was the first person to fully experience Kenpachi's zanpakuto. It was beautiful and terrifying to watch as ghostly weapons and limbs appeared and destroyed the enemies hunting them. It was sad to watch Kenpachi try to reach out and hug the air desperately. Eventually, it would become a routine thing to see everyone he had lost. She suspected that the zanpakuto had truly changed to reflect the nature of the Eleventh Division captain; it was part of why she accepted and loved him. It was obvious that he truly loved and cared for everyone around him, because they all haunted him._

_He called it a cursed sword, it brought back everything that he had ever fought with/for/against and threw it all in his face. The ghosts were always there, lurking beneath his consciousness in a legion of madness and suffering. Some of them would cycle in and out, their own existence fleeting in his memory. Others would be there constantly, chattering along as he tried to sleep. The visualization of his zanpakuto was more than one creature, it was a chaotic, twisted army of spirits that followed him and argued with each other. The few that were always there represented the people closest to him, unconsciously reinforced by the power of his own reiatsu in their bids to break into the living world._

_Even after many battles, Kenpachi was never really sure what the limits of his zanpakuto were. The legion argued about its own abilities all the time, giving and revoking powers as they desired. Ultimately, Kenpachi accepted that the only constant powers would be a few ghosts fighting with him and the 'touch of ghosts' – showing a person their own regrets. Occasionally, the zanpakuto affected hollows and arrancar, so it was assumed that they might also have such regrets. On a regular basis, the only people affected by the 'touch' were shinigami who weren't watching and touched the blade. Most of them made an effort to never repeat the experience._

_Kenpachi was often baffled by his zanpakuto, and what it implied about him – the wielder. It was difficult to truly discern what a shinigami's blade would manifest as, or even why it did. Retsu's zanpakuto represented her womb – or at least her conception of her womb. Her womb would consume any child conceived within it, refusing her the ability to give life to children. It was vicious, full of hate, pain, and suffering; but it could also be a place of healing. Rangiku's zanpakuto was a reflection of her flighty nature. Hitsugaya's blade was a reincarnation of an ancient dragon, just as many people suspected the prodigy of being a reincarnation of an ancient warrior. Hanataro had been driven so mad that his zanpakuto reflected his subconscious desire to see all of his wounds inflicted upon another. Mayuri's weapon appeared as the face of a God that only he could look upon.  
_

_Kenpachi's zanpakuto was a legion of people he had lost or killed. What did that make him?_

~OOOOOOO~

The drug wore off again, but it didn't matter. It was time to get ready to go. Zanpakuto, check. Hanataro had Nemu, and the rest of the group was ready. Finding the room large enough to set up all of the floor seals, and one that was a part of the previous sewage structure. Thankfully the Fourth Division is well acquainted with the area. Mayuri gathered up his stuff, and then injected the sleeping drug after attaching Kenpachi to Unohana's back.

Darkness surrounded him. There was only darkness in this dream world. Kenpachi couldn't feel anything. Then he froze, remembering what this dream was a memory of. Rage gripped him and he tried to break free from the dream. 'This can't happen again. She's gone. She's dead. He's dead, I killed him myself!' Kenpachi's silent screams did nothing to penetrate the dreamscape. Enraged, Kenpachi struggled to free himself from the motionless doom he was trapped within. It was useless to struggle; he had tried every time and failed to escape.

A whisper sounded in his ear, "Justice will be exacted from you. You will pay for your sins."

A nightmare, a combination of the effects of the drug and the cyclic nature of his dreams, it was a creation of his mind and reality. Real events, but it was essentially just self-torture using a montage of meetings. He remembered Tousen, and he remembered the blind madman speaking every word at some point.

"I can control it better now," the voice returned, "Would you like me to show you what your sins have done to the people you love?"

He closed his eyes, but it did nothing to help in the dream. She's still there. Armless and legless, her mouth stood open in a scream even as she dribbled out the last of her lifeblood. Her eyes flickered in recognition as she noticed Kenpachi coming towards her.

"Ah, I let her see you too. I decided that your crimes are worth the maximum punishment I can provide. Not to mention that she is an accessory to many of your crimes," the flat tone annoyed Kenpachi; it only reminded him that he could do nothing here. It was almost mocking in its superiority. "I'll let her say goodbye to you now, since a child raised by you is still a child."

Kenpachi watched her, eyes wide as he reached out. His eyes registered the connection with her body, and he clutched the small body close to him. She couldn't hug him back, so he just held her to his chest, giving her the last comfort that he can.

He could feel her body, bleeding out against his own. The blood meant nothing between them; they had lived in filth and shit for years before coming to Soul Society. In his arms, she was just a tiny, simple girl again. A beautiful child, she deserved nothing that happened to her.

Her voice, weak and rasping, was the last thing that Kenpachi remembered before he blacked out.

"Father…."

~OOOOOOO~

Fighting the sleep, Kenpachi managed to reach a state of awareness of his surroundings. They were running somewhere, and he couldn't see anyone. There was yelling coming from behind him, but it was indistinct.

An ice dragon roared in front of his ride. It passed in a frenzy of movement as it blocked off a passageway up ahead. Suddenly, the rooms were turning quickly, and then stopped. They had reached a destination; but there were still the noises of hollows following after them.

Kenpachi was let down on the floor gently, his eyes starting to roll around in his head. The water underneath him splashed. Everyone was arguing over something.

Hanataro was yelling something about going back. Why bother?

Soi Fong was unrolling a large design map, even as Unohana chanted a spell. Ah, the water receded. Hanataro left, saying that he would hold them off as long as he could.

Mayuri was fiddling around with a bundle, which then he shoved in Kenpachi's arms. He looked Kenpachi in the eye, "Go back as far as you can, it's the best chance we have." Then he lifted up the larger man carefully, setting him in the center of Soi Fong's design map. Then the three captains who could think clearly began to move around the map and mark in symbols, occasionally stopping to chant something over a certain bit.

Kenpachi thought about the past, trying to call it up in some semblance of order. Even after joining the Gotei Thirteen, there were very few events that stood out as historically important. Ikkaku, Yumichika, and Yachiru; they were all pretty close to when he went to become a shinigami. At least, his memories made the passage of time seem very indistinct. It could have been fifty years, it could have been five, but either way, he wanted to go back farther. There were very few memories that he could get a grip on, most of the past was a blur of violence and survival. Gangs, brothels, the dead, and the dying were the things that ruled Zaraki.

The oldest memory that mattered though, that was a sword that he knew was his and no one else's. He remembered waking up one day, and it was there. To him, it was always just a sword that would always be with him. It was nothing special, but it was something constant. That day was the day that he woke up and started to become Kenpachi.

Minutes passed while Kenpachi mused, then all of a sudden he heard several explosions from the access tunnel. The other captains kept working, making sure their symbols had no mistakes made. The chanting held no meaning for him though, since the powerful kido had always been a blank of sorts. The bundle in his arms didn't make any sense; it was wrapped up in his jacket though. Supplies were always welcome, for whatever reason he would need them. Old Soul Society had been pretty rich in food. Even in places like Zaraki it was easy enough to get food if you were willing to work – or fight – for it.

Finally they halted their markings and took places around the circle. Kenpachi watched them as they set themselves into position. Hands on the floor, eyes straight ahead, kneeling around him.

Kenpachi blinked, watching as the symbols started to glow. His resolve wavered for a moment.

"I'm sorry," he croaked out, clearing his throat, "I can never repay you."

Soi Fong grunted, "Just make it a better world, give it a fighting chance," she looked back down, "Yoruichi-sama…"

Kenpachi nodded, turning his eyes to Retsu. She held his eyes with her own for a moment, before looking away. "There is nothing to repay. I trust you," she smiled, turning her eyes down.

Mayuri twisted his face into a grin when Kenpachi made eye contact. The message from before went unspoken, showing no weakness even now. _"Save her." _The words came back to Kenpachi, and he looked around for Nemu. The glowing from the symbols started to intensify, and the bundle in his arms responded with a twitch.

Kenpachi looked down, realizing that he was holding Nemu. He swiftly moved the covering aside, to confirm it. Her face was marred with symbols tattooed into her flesh. He looked up in shock, crying in anger, "No!"

Moving to throw the baby out, Kenpachi discovered that he was restrained. He growled in anger, "What the hell is this?"

Mayuri watched him, an emotionless expression on his face. "It was the best way."

"Damn it Mayuri! Let her go."

Mayuri ignored him, mechanically starting to chant. The symbols started to pulse otherworldly threads. Nemu's face became distorted as the bundle started to mold itself. Kenpachi screamed, trying to brush the filaments off. He turned his head to look at Soi Fong, who had her eyes closed tightly as she chanted. Whipping his head around to Retsu, he saw her watching him.

"Retsu!"

She continued to chant, as the darkness continued to consume the circle. Kenpachi grabbed for his zanpakuto, unsheathing it with one hand as he started to focus his power. Mayuri broke the chant in fear, "Stop, you fool!"

Kenpachi looked at him helplessly, confused at his intentions. Then he brought his hand down on to Nemu, releasing energy into her tiny body. The controlled release of pure spiritual energy had been the closest thing to kido that he had ever practiced. The black "arms" started to fragment from her form, but the ones reaching from the ground became more agitated and began rapidly growing. It was like they fed on spiritual power. Suddenly, he became the generator for the whole system, and his power started to leave him in a series of powerful heartbeats.

The room started to disappear into the darkness, and then Kenpachi was alone, in a dark space. He felt weak, drained. He rose to his feet, twisting his body around. The restraints were gone.

~OOOOOOO~

It was different from Tousen's world. This darkness was open, free. There wasn't an oppressive crushing feeling. The sensation of something around his feet distracted him. It was like grass was flowing in a stream around him. The smell of the underground followed him here, keeping the place familiar. His body came into focus, surrounded by the void.

He clutched the bundle of Nemu closer, feeling nothing from it. His zanpakuto was silent - a piece of wood in his hands - and it seemed weightless, a radical change from its growing weight and voices which had followed him since he had acknowledged it. There was no resistance against him, or the freeing drain that was bankai. This world, which swallowed him with hungry tendrils, made him feel free. He moved a foot, trying to take a step forward, and there was no resistance from the liquid that seemed to flow across his feet.

It was odd, his head felt strangely open. It was like a force was searching it for something like a dictionary or something. He looked up, and saw that the dark sky was changing colors. Beginning at the hard black, it softened and shaded itself as it changed to a deeper black, stars glistening in the depths. The stars flickered in places, and Kenpachi narrowed his eyes as the sky lightened to a deep blue. Clouds flickered across the barely lit sky, exposing and covering stars in seconds at a time. They were all moving too fast, as though everything was on fast forward. The sky turned a deep magenta as Kenpachi watched the field with a wary eye.

Suddenly a cut opened on his body. Kenpachi looked down, confused. There wasn't a feeling of being cut, and it actually felt more like an old scar opening up. The blood wasn't dripping; a small amount simply bulged from the wound, as though it had nowhere to escape to. The shape of a man started to materialize from the bleak landscape. Another cut. A multitude of small cuts peppered his frame, yet no blood dripped from his body. There was no pain, just a raw wound opening. It was like watching meat at the butcher's. His vision started to show things beyond his own skin. Black buildings came into focus against a sunset. It was Rukongai. Perhaps it was even the Zaraki district. More men appeared in the streets, watching his body cutting itself open. Their faces were indistinct, but were becoming clearer as he noticed them mouthing words at him.

"-Me" A voice whispered, the rest of its statement cut off. Kenpachi craned his neck to the side, bringing a large hollow into focus. Kenpachi raised an eyebrow, tensing his muscles in preparation to dodge.

"You killed me." The voice said.

A vicious stab exploded from his lung, and Kenpachi looked down, expecting to see Shinsou extending from his body. He twisted his head around, but only a faded red sky was there to greet him. His feet remained glued to the floor. There was nothing around attacking him, the wounds kept appearing. Larger slashes appeared around his frame, his chest and legs peppered with them. An odd touch accompanied the dislocation of his shoulder. "What the hell is this?" Kenpachi growled.

Another voice drawled out, "You killed me."

More wounds formed on his body. Kenpachi tried to shift something besides his head or neck, but found them to be frozen. The wounds were almost never severe, only the hole in his chest and several slashes were more than a nuisance. The blood continued to simply bulge out from the wounds, and he was starting to seem more like a piece of art than anything else. The voices started to join together in an eerie chant. Kenpachi ignored the wounds and words, trying to focus on what he remembered. A test. Was this the test? Possibly.

This had nothing to do with honor though. Power maybe. The amount of blood that he could lose was proportional to his reiatsu. Did he have to do anything but stand and watch his scars open up? Or was he supposed to speak with these voices?

"Oi!" Kenpachi tried to shout down the crowd of voices, and they quieted a little bit. He skimmed his eyes over them, looking for one he recognized. "I get it, I killed you all." He shrugged, "So what do you want from me?"

"Apologize." One voice whispered.

Turning his head, Kenpachi found the speaker. Kaname Tousen. He bared his teeth in response, "Hell no, I have no reason to apologize to you."

"Apologize and we'll heal your cuts," a new voice spoke, but it was no less repulsive. Ichimaru Gin was smiling from a few feet to the side. "Forgiveness will heal you."

Kenpachi let out a little laugh at the idea. "No, I can't lie to you." He raked his eyes over the crowd of men and creatures before him. "I can't apologize to you, because there's nothing to apologize for. So what if I killed you," he shrugged, "I bet that you were trying to kill me too." Kenpachi shook his head tiredly; "I won't beg you for my life."

Kenpachi raised his eyes from the buildings, staring off into this red sky. It was good to see the sky again, whatever the circumstances may be. This was another clear night, the red and purple merging out into the darkened sky. He absentmindedly checked his reiatsu. He had lost a good portion of it. Was it to the spell or to these cuts? Didn't Mayuri mention something about losing his power for a long time?

The past. What was his past?

There was this damned war. Before that he was Eleventh Division Captain for so long. Kenpachi absently looked down, seeing Nemu held close to him, wrapped up in his jacket. He lifted her to his face. She was still simply a weightless object. The characters and symbols on her skin were faded in odd patterns, a giant handprint disrupting them on her face and upper chest. What had Mayuri been doing?

"Save her…." Kenpachi mumbled quietly. Yet Mayuri had attempted to use and discard her just as he had many times before. If he hadn't wanted to save Nemu, whom did he want to save?

Kenpachi sighed, his chest falling from the exertion. He narrowed his eyes, glancing around at the crowd and testing his limbs. His upper body was free now, a blade gripped in one hand and Nemu held carefully with the other. His blade was still silent, so he moved the hilt to shift Nemu up a little bit with that hand. There was no bloodstain on the cloak, yet his wounds were still multiplying. Time was an illusion now, but it seemed that every few minutes one of the voices whispered the same thing, "You killed me. Apologize,"

Kenpachi lowered the baby again, still unsure about the situation. His body was functioning, yet it wasn't. There had never been this many cuts on anyone he had ever met. People generally died from several of the wounds he could see on his chest. Multiple stab wounds. Indented places. At least one burnt spot. Several brutal slash marks in various directions. He absently traced two with his thumb; they formed deep furrows across his chest. "Kurosaki Ichigo," he reminisced. A stupid boy on a fool's quest, yet Ichigo would struggle so hard to win everything for someone else. Kurosaki had disappeared with several of his friends, taking up another foolish gambit to save a friend. Renji never liked to talk about it, being that he barely survived it in the first place.

Was he any different from Ichigo now? Kenpachi was taking up his own fool's quest, running to the past alone to save everyone he ever cared about.

No. Ichigo was doing it just for them. Kenpachi nodded his head. "I am fighting for myself."

Kenpachi watched the cuts appear across his limbs and torso for a little while. It was hypnotic in a way. The wounds weren't totally random, most of them were attempts at killing attacks, impaling or cutting open his torso. There were fewer along his legs and arms, disabling strikes. He even saw a little bit of blood on the very edge of his vision, coming from a wound on his face. Some wounds he recognized and connected with people watching him, people he had killed. If they had come this close to killing him in the first place, there was nothing to apologize for.

It was his life. Fighting. Killing. He wasn't doing it just for himself anymore though. Not since he picked up Yachiru really. Teaching her, and eventually teaching everyone, how to be a person worth fighting for. He taught them to be someone who woke up in the morning and fought until the day is through, who lived their life with few regrets, and someone who could survive in a cruel world. They learned from his experiences, and learned from their own.

Before that there was mostly mindless violence. There was the two fights with a man named Yachiru, where he learned mercy, and where he finally set himself up to be 'Kenpachi'. Before that, there was nothing important, except a sword in his hand. A sword that always found its way back to him.

Ironically, it was also the sword that contradicted his previous beliefs. He had regrets, all of them about people that he failed to save. Everyone he had taught was dead and gone, except for himself. Had his teachings failed everyone so miserably? Maybe his regrets were what kept him alive longer than any of the others.

There were a few other memories, of fighting with clubs and axes, fists and knives, spears and blades of all shapes and sizes. None of that mattered; it was simply the life for anyone who was truly 'of Zaraki'. Ikkaku understood, because it was the same world he was born into. Yumichika understood, because it was a world he was born in service to. Yachiru watched it all, and did not interfere, because different people lived their lives in different ways. There were few other people in the Gotei Thirteen who could really understand it.

This twilight world was not Zaraki; it was simply a vision of his memories. Kenpachi let his eyes focus again, glaring out at the world. He noticed that there was a cut coming down over his eye. Both eyes opened up in shock, remembering where that wound came from.

"Yachiru-san," he whispered.

He looked at his chest, even as he shifted his legs. The mass of bloody flesh was still there, skin barely visible around all the wounds. It was like watching the world stand still. Kenpachi knew he should be dead from all these wounds. Why wasn't he bleeding out?

"Nng."

Kenpachi grunted, a slice of pain running through him. The mincemeat – his body – flexed unnaturally. Another stab of pain stabbed through him. Suddenly he collapsed, clutching the child to him with one arm. His sword-arm sunk to the ground, resting the blade against the floor. Ripples of energy pulsed around his body, and his world dissolved into pain.

Stabbing pains across his whole body, violent power reverberating through his body. The sense of touch was overloading, too many nerve pulses crying out the same message to an unresponsive brain. Consciousness was holding him in place as he screamed incoherently. He dropped the bundle and the blade to the ground, clutching his head in agony at the cacophony of pain.

He felt all the cuts as one giant deluge of pain. He couldn't stand; falling to his knees he waited for death. Not even death in combat for the great Kenpachi. A simple death, no one would remember him, and everyone would be forgotten. They would all have died alone, for nothing.

"**No**," Kenpachi whispered, voice hoarse, even as the stabbing pains continued their dance.

I Will Survive.

He took his hands from his head, moving them to the floor to support himself.

What made this worse than anything else?

He put his weight on his hands, grunting from the force and pressure.

The name 'Kenpachi' didn't matter, because this battle wasn't one he could win with a sword.

One foot found a grip on the ground, preparing to stand.

This was simply a test of will. And this simple man, a man who called himself a kenpachi, a child of Zaraki, had never lost a test of will.

His second leg moved up, leaning weight back on the ball of his foot as he worked to stand.

Live. Breath. Fight. Stand. Never give up.

The man scrabbled a hand for his sword, bringing it to bear in front of him as a lever.

The world doesn't care about you. It only cares about what you can do.

He reeled back a bit, digging the sword in as he grasped the baby blanket.

And this is all he can do. Fight harder. Fight until there is nothing left inside of him. Fight until his body consumes itself.

He lurched upwards, leaning most of his weight on the sword.

Live.

He raised his sword to his shoulder, and held the baby in his other arm.

The power was leaving him then, disappearing as he stood using just his muscles.

Inspecting the sky, he noticed that it was cracking slowly.

The power that remained in his body was inconsequential to his former oppressive reiatsu. Looking around, the crowd of people had changed to everyone he lost. They smiled as they watched him rise to his feet. Walking forward, they caressed his body, healing some of his wounds. Yachiru, Ikkaku, Yumichika… they grinned and sent him a thumbs up, their bodies looking healthy and alive as their ethereal hands passed over his body. Kenpachi felt his body healing as he stood on his own two feet.

Yamamoto, Komamura, and Ukitake gave soft smiles, walking through his body to heal a few more cuts. Kenpachi straightened a little bit, feeling his organs start to reform into complete parts – rather then the mess of twisted bits it had devolved into.

All of the shinigami that had ever served with him ran through his body in a ghostly train, each one leaving a little bit of energy behind and healing a few cuts. Their faces were laughing, some of them charging forward like they were going to tackle him, it was almost an elaborate children's game of 'follow the leader'. He was slowly healing up; every person he regretted was one more little piece of healing. Lights danced in his vision, will-o-wisps in this softly failing light. Cracks in the sky yawed open in a twisted mockery of his sanity, defying every law of reality Kenpachi had ever seen. Strings of pure darkness dripped from the sky like twisting stalactites of coagulated blood. The buildings started to crumble and fade away, as so many of them had over the centuries of disrepair.

Through this crumbling world, Kenpachi made out eight figures standing in front of him. The last shinigami. The only death gods to escape death watched him with blank looks, calm smiles, and grins of success. Shuuhei simply snorted and strode through Kenpachi. Kira smiled, following his close friend with less hostility. Hanataro ran forward – his arms outstretched to give a hug – and fell to the ground in front of Kenpachi. Whining a little bit in pain, Hanataro was drug through by Soi Fong, who rolled her eyes with a wide grin on her face.

"Good luck old man," she whispered to Kenpachi, hurling Hanataro's body forward before jumping up to kiss Kenpachi's cheek.

A sadistic smile gracing his face, Mayuri walked forward with confident strides. A questioning look on Kenpachi's face stopped him. The smile fell as he noticed the girl in Kenpachi's arms – and then Mayuri spoke. "Take care of her too." He briskly walked through Kenpachi, leaving his original request to mystery.

The last three came forward together, Retsu's soft steps contrasting with Toshiro's quick legs and Rangiku's jerky movements. Toshiro smirked before he spoke, "Zaraki-san, you know we're not real." Kenpachi's shoulders slumped, the knowledge that the whole place was merely a construct making him wince.

Rangiku giggled, then straightened and gave her solemn report, "Zaraki-taicho. Composite creations of your zanpakuto, reporting," she suddenly collapsed in tears, "I'm sorry, don't hurt me anymore… please," she began mumbling pure nonsense, laughing and crying with every word. Her arms wrapped around her body, protecting her and giving her some small comfort in the world.

Toshiro knelt down, carefully lifting the shivering woman into his arms. Looking up to Kenpachi's face, Toshiro's stony expression was reminiscent of so many looks of distain given to anyone and everyone. Kenpachi chuckled as his eyes filled with tears. "Maybe Hitsugaya Toshiro will be a completely different man," Toshiro glanced down at Rangiku, his cheeks flushing with shame, "But if he's as much of an idiot as you were, then I'll have to teach the kid a few things. Hyorinmaru would never forgive me if I didn't, neh?" Kenpachi grinned, the mood lightening a little bit as he waved his hand through what would be Toshiro's hair.

Toshiro schooled his expression, but a small smile was left. "Tch, you've still got to figure out what your new name is," he paused for a second as he adjusted the now sleeping Rangiku – her shirt falling open a little bit, like it always did. "There may not be any competition for the name 'Kenpachi' in your generation, but the way Kurotsuchi was talking, it might be difficult to fake it until your power comes back."

Kenpachi shrugged, "Eh, they'll get over it. Maybe I'll be 'ex-Kenpachi' for a couple years."

Toshiro rolled his eyes, and then walked forward. "I'll be watching," the young man shot back as he phased through Kenpachi.

Raising his face to the last person, Kenpachi saw that they were the only people left. "Unohana Retsu," Kenpachi drawled the name as slowly as he could.

Her soft smile accented her laughing eyes, "The man formerly known as 'Kenpachi' of Zaraki." She bowed at the waist, mocking him while her fresh braid tongued the darkness pooling on the 'floor'. Straightening, her voice was filled with mirth, "I would recommend you seek psychological help, but I'm just a figment of your imagination."

Chuckling, Kenpachi shrugged in response. "Sorry, my regular doctor seems to have ceased to exist."

Retsu watched his sad eyes for a moment, "Zaraki-san-"

"Can't you call me Kenpachi?" he interjected.

She smiled, "Just because I'm gone doesn't mean that I'll act any different in here," she gestured at the darkness surrounding them, "I will only act as you remember me acting." Her smile became solemn, "Kenpachi… don't live in the past." He smirked at the joke, but she kept talking. "You know me, that's why I'm here. So you know that I wouldn't want you to get lost in memories of us."

Kenpachi held Nemu to his chest, knowing that she was his last link to his old life besides the memories and his zanpakuto. Retsu's hand reached above his, grasping his with a cold sensation. "Change the past Kenpachi. Take care of Nemu as your own. But live your life, and have less regrets." She had a sad smile on her face, "I'm sorry." And she kissed through him, leaving him with a shiver.

The darkness started to tear at his body, hungry for something. The tendrils made little hooks and claws, penetrating his skin as they dragged him through a veil, even as the sewers he left behind started to become visible through the madness.

"Thank you," he whispered to the fresh air.

The ceiling was unblemished, and there were no people visible around him. In the distance, he heard voices. The darkness was receding from all around him, and he glanced down at his body. The scars looked newly healed. They would eventually mold into the markings he had before. His sword was heavier then it was before, so he hefted it, getting a better hold on it. Nemu, he raised her to his chest, watching her little body as she took a breath.

The unnatural darkness was gone from the floor now, and he noticed that it was extremely clean. A torch in the distance flickered and made him flinch, the unfamiliar light surprising him. He suddenly felt very exhausted, and his sword slipped from his hand to crunch loudly into the stone. The unnatural light left from the spell vanished completely, plunging him into almost complete darkness.

His vision started to blur, and he swayed uncertainly. Nemu made a little sigh and shifted in her blanket. The voices persisted in getting closer. What were they saying?

A voice rang through the hall, "I told you I heard something from over here!"

That voice was piercing. What division was usually responsible for the sewers and tunnels? Fourth. Retsu.

"Can I see Unohana-taicho?" Kenpachi rumbled out, stumbling a little.

The flickering torch stopped moving around outside of the room. Kenpachi noticed several shapes moving towards him. Suddenly the shadows around him got a lot longer, and he noticed the bars separating him from the hall. His consciousness was leaving him; the drain on his power was too much.

"How do we get past this?" one of the voices whined.

Kenpachi's vision blacked out, denying him any further interactions. He thudded to the floor on his back, turning to protect Nemu as he crumbled. She gave out a shocked noise, the conduct of her current caretaker jarring her into a wakeful state. The voice of a crying baby lulled Kenpachi to sleep as he whispered the name again, "Retsu…"


End file.
